


A Healing Death

by Adeline_Hatter



Series: How the Master ended up travelling with the Doctor [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Academy Era mentions, Childhood Friends, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feral Sibling Bastard Energy, Fighting, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Finale, Prison, Referenced/Mentioned Nazi plot from Spyfall, References to Drugs, Spoilers for Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Suicidal Thoughts, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, The Deca - Freeform, The Rani is lowkey a shut in who doesn't pay attention to a lot, This started out as 'The Rani is gonna send them to therapy' and then spiralled out of control, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Use of the Cartmel Masterplan, With the Timeless Child revelation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:08:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adeline_Hatter/pseuds/Adeline_Hatter
Summary: What to do when an old friend shows up on your doorstep hurt and alone?Call him an idiot then start a fight of course.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), The Rani | Ushas (Academy Era) & The Master (Dhawan), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: How the Master ended up travelling with the Doctor [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735342
Comments: 50
Kudos: 225





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy whatever this is... It really did spiral out of control. 
> 
> THIS FIC DOES NOT CONTAIN ROMANCE BETWEEN THE MASTER AND THE RANI PLEASE DO NOT THINK THAT IS WHERE I AM GOING IT IS NOT. 
> 
> Okay, read on.

It always starts the same way, someone running into whatever room she’s in to inform her that someone has just appeared in her residence. 

Doesn’t matter what planet or what time, but it keeps her on her toes, especially when she cannot predict which room they will invade.

She has always been aware of the connotations of the society within the Citadel… No, that was wrong, it was always the whole of society on Gallifrey, compliant asses who let their children be collected like prizes, put through hell and made insane without a care because they thought it was  _ good  _ for them when really it was anything but. 

Always aware that if they wanted they could wipe lives from your memory, then pump you full of energy so you would never even notice the difference. 

Forever aware that the society that abused its children and it’s people could never ever be capable of telling the truth, which was one of the reasons she’d only ever dived the once into the Matrix, then resulted in books and old research papers. 

The Rani, nearing three thousand was oh so aware that this society is what had cost her, her family. The Deca. 

Only one ever consistently showed up, it was only ever when they needed her help, when they needed a moment of sanity in a world she ruled that they were avoiding the only other place they could get it. 

She remembers every face they have, she counts, she isn’t stupid, she counts Theta’s too, knows that the idiot is on their fourteenth for reasons she has no idea where to begin with, despite how fascinating it could be… 

Koschei had stolen another body at one point, or at least thought he had been told he had… But she watched too closely for that, always far away but always watching, it was how she kept an eye out when she didn’t want to talk to them, which meant she did miss things from time to time.

They almost matched in number, but only one was truly aware of that fact, of the way they seemed to drift like that, one thinking himself with only one face left and the other unaware that they had never received another cycle. 

It was almost pitiful really, the way they just clung to each other as they drifted through space and time, but still pulled in that direction no matter what. 

If she had more patience she would have studied it, if she had more patience she’d have told them to wait. 

Ushas, was not a patient woman and that was one of the many reasons why she watched from afar, to keep her frustration tempered down just barely… 

She sees the purple first, resting on the wall, face twisted up in a grimace of pain and it’s so familiar that she moves towards them a little quicker than normal. 

Approaching with caution first, but there are burns along his hand and twisting up his arms with a whole sleeve missing from his shirt and jacket, she approaches a little more and looks at him. 

His face is twisted in a snarl as he turns his eyes to her, large, wide and full of rage, something burning deep down inside of him that ignites the same flame in her, preparing her for a fight before he slums against the wall, falling down it slowly. 

“Rani…” He whispers, looking up at her, her nose wrinkles as she hears the Northern in his accent before she crouches to the floor and checks his pulse, tilts his head back and he tries to fight her but he’s fighting off something else and it clicks. 

The Rani stands again, clicking her fingers and calling out to those who are serving as her lab assistants today, a simple call as one of her oldest friends is pulled onto a stretcher and towards the medical wing of the building. 

They’ve fought again, the idiots and he’d just barely gotten away. 

* * *

  
  
  


“Did she pull the trigger?” 

“What?” He mumbles through so many drugs to numb the pain and stop his body from killing itself whilst she works, he looks like a child again from where she’s stood scanning him over whilst one of her assistants removes the cheap and nasty time travel from his arm, “....I wanted her to…” 

She laughs, rolling her eyes and turning to face him properly, “So, no, of course she didn’t… Honestly, I can’t believe I officiated for you two.” The Rani crossed her arms and tilted her head at him, watching him move sluggishly, trying to sit up. 

“What’s in my veins?” Her eyes burn with the urge to roll them again, dramatic. 

“The same type of drug I use on myself, especially when I need to heal.” She checks the levels on the controls, turns it down just a tad, before stepping and walking around the area, waving her assistants away with relative ease as she pulls her hair out of her face and into a bun at the back of her head, “Don’t argue with me, get some sleep.” 

He opens his mouth to complain, but she steps through the door to the infirmary and takes a moment to lock it. 

* * *

  
  


She’s drugging him against his will, but he can feel the instruments staving around his regeneration energy and keeping it in check whilst her machine fixes damaged tissue. 

He’ll work out the exact blend of ingredients in the drugs at some point, but he has to admit there’s something pleasant about the dullness that takes over from that thing in the back of his head… The Cyberium however, seems to almost rage against them. 

It’s not painful as it flips and twists, whispers little things to him, things he cannot find the time to care about. 

He hasn’t wanted to sleep for such a long time, but now the urge to just close his eyes and let that dull emptiness take over is so strong, so welcoming… But giving into that, will only make him wish it had been permanent when he wakes up. 

Still, he watches as the Rani, presses two fingers made of dusted brown skin against his temple and he feels the world go dark. 

He dreams of golden cities, burnt to ashes, to eyes wide and open and full of something he will not let himself name, he dreams of two children holding hands and running through a field before one pushes the other down the hill, laughing as he watches the other roll. 

The Master dreams of the lifetime he knows is real, the lifetimes he knows only really matters to him now. 

* * *

  
  


There’s something in his head and she doesn’t know what it is… And that, in itself, bugs her. 

She doesn’t like not knowing what something is, so she resolves to figure out how to get it out of him… Without killing him, that was off the table, there were only so many of them left since the Time War after all. 

It’s always the Master though, who shows up on her doorstep for help at least once per face, she helps because she doesn’t really see another option in doing so… She’s seen others in the moment when they thought the person they loved was dead and gone and it was never pretty… She never wanted to find out what a certain someone was like when that person died for them. 

There’s so much rage in his eyes when she comes in the next morning, but she doesn’t apologise, it simply wasn’t how they did things after all. 

“You drugged me.” 

“You’re arm was about to fall off and I didn’t want to see you get crispy again- Even if some people we know were into it.” She keeps her tone even as he glares at her, new eyes and just as impossible as Missy’s had been, she moves towards him in quick succession with clicks on the floor from her heels, black hair done up tightly in a bun now as she checked his vitals, “You aren’t going to regenerate, you haven’t had long in this body yet so I figured you may want to keep it a bit longer.” 

The Master stares at her with all the disdain in the world and it reminds her very briefly of his first face, “Why didn’t you just let me die?”

She stares him down, earrings swinging of pale red gems in teardrop shape, she makes her eyes as wide as possible to look at him as she raises a single, solitary eyebrow. 

“You aren’t going to answer that are you?” 

Her eyes roll and she turns away, turning off the machines as she goes, “What on earth almost killed you this time? That injury  _ will  _ scar you know, it looked like Cyber technology? Anything you want to tell me so I can assist in your care?” 

His own eyes roll, then he twitches and her scanners beep. 

“What do you have in your head?” She asks patiently, “It’s messing up the scanners, I can’t check your brain waves properly to make sure you don’t have brain damage- And I know it’s an external force, it wouldn’t be doing this if it were brain damage.” 

He grins, manic and insane and it clicks in her head in a moment, more so than asking her why she didn’t let him die. 

“I’m not Theta.” She says it softly and watches him flinch, memories of whatever confrontation he’s just had with them still fresh in his mind, the Rani stands up taller to look at him as she sighs, “Koschei, don’t act like a child, we’re not children.” 

His grin fades a little bit, eyes still glaring at her. 

“There aren’t many of us left since the Time War, I would quite like to keep the friends I have alive…” Her admittance is even softer, she watches him calculate it in his head, then an expression over takes all others, “What is it?”

She would call the expression guilt if it were on anyone else’s face, “You don’t know do you?” His voice is as soft as it would get when they were tiny and hiding from their tutors, “Rani, you don’t know.” 

A flicker of annoyance runs into her mind, “What do I not know?” 

“...I’ll tell you another time.” He looks haunted for a moment, before he lies back against the covers and turns his eyes to the ceiling, “You can give me another dose, or put me back to sleep again, it’s better than talking to you.” 

She lets go of the nostalgia in her head as she purses her lips, moves forwards but doesn’t give him drugs and just knocks him out cold again. 

“Bastard.” She mutters as she walks out of the room again, shoes making noise as she went, but in the comfort of her own mind she admits she’s worried about him. 

* * *

  
  


She gets more worried when he barely speaks the next day, but accepts her offer of food and then, holds his head out for her to tap him to sleep again and she still has no idea what’s in his head. 

But if she had to hazard a guess it’s Cyber tech, probably an A.I that he took into his brain in a moment of stupidity beyond all else. 

She looks and keeps an eye out for Theta, because where the Master goes the Doctor will surely follow sooner or later, it was just how they worked. 

There is something unsettling about how he slowly becomes a bit more compliant, because that simply wasn’t him, he wouldn’t tell her what he’d put in his brain and he wasn’t himself…    
  
It showed in the way his mind complied when she sent him to dreamland.

Her attention is pulled back to the monitors for the cameras in his room as he throws things against the wall, expensive equipment just little pieces on the floor. 

She stands, brushing her hair over her shoulders and squaring them to stand up taller, walking out of her office and down the hallway in quick succession, he can make a weapon out of anything and she stuck him in a room with tools to do just that. 

There’s a crash as she opens the door, watching him pick through the pieces of technology, “Stop that, that was expensive.” 

“Oh yes!” The Master yells it, “I IMAGINE IT WAS!” And he throws another of her machines on the floor, “That’s all you care about after all, yourself, your money and your-FUCKING-PROJECTS!” 

She lets him throw this one at her and side steps it with ease. 

“Well, I do look out for myself first, that is true.” The Rani admits, taking another step towards him, watching his eyes and how they flick all over the room like he’s high off of something, that she knows is roiling inside his brain, “Now, would you kindly stop destroying those machines? I need them to keep you alive-”    
  
He shoves another against the wall with more power than his form this time would suggest and it shatters, she pursues her lips, “Too bad they broke.” His sneer turns into a wide and wicked grin and she gets it.

“You really aren’t yourself.” She states it and watches him stop in the middle of the room, before he whirls to face her, picking up a broken piece of metal to come at her and she side steps him again.

The Master stares at her, eyes wide and manic, a twinge of pain working its way through his face, “How would you know? I am myself, I’m the most myself I’ve ever been-” He’s getting closer again and she doesn’t sidestep him this time, just watches the metal in his hands, “-so who are you to say I’m not myself?”

“You aren’t yourself…” The Rani begins, raising her hands, “Because I can do this-” And before he’s even blinked, her hand is on his head and she’s shifting through his mind before he slumps and she catches him.

She blows an imaginary piece of dust off her face, “Why are your forms always so heavy?”

He’s not himself, his mind is working against him faster than ever before and she wonders why he has the same beat in his head that she would hear him murmuring as a child. 

A quick look is enough, there is so much knowledge and power in his head that it’s shorting him out, like a computer drive with full memory, but the owner keeps trying to download more into it.

He’s not himself, because there is something called a Cyberium inside his head.

* * *

  
  


She makes sure the room is cleared of anything but the bed, the debri being cleared up relatively quickly and she leaves him a sandwich on a plate in the middle of the floor, covered with plastic. 

It was true what he said about her only really caring about herself, but what else would anyone else do in her position? One of an estimated  _ Six  _ survivors of a time war, where someone had used a super weapon to wipe out her entire planet and species. 

She had her suspicion of who exactly had pressed the button, but all she felt was gratitude that she was nowhere near Gallifrey when it happened, on the other side of the universe having dinner with a beautiful woman instead.

The Rani had never been a fan of War, even when they’d called her home, said her crimes would be pardoned… Idiots, she did those crimes for a reason. 

The moment she has locked the door to his room again, she orders every single person who would typically assist her in her work to take the rest of the day off and to pass on, that absolutely no one was to interact with the man in the room without her express her permission first.

It was useless to lose good hands for no reason after all. 

* * *

  
  


_ Cyberium… Cyberium… Cy-bee-ri-um…  _

She digs through so many of her databases, keeps on digging and doesn’t find anything at first, which means she needs to make a new entry… For a new discovery she will wholeheartedly claim.

But first she needed to work out how to get it out of his head, without frying his brain- Well, she wouldn’t try too hard on that last part, it’s not like it would hurt to have a vegetable instead of someone hellbent on destroying the Universe  _ they  _ lived in every five years or so. 

No, the Doctor would break down her door and cause havoc if she did this, so might as well try to get it out… Keyword  _ try _ . 

She’d have to bypass his natural magnetism, just like she’d have to bypass her own… Or use her own as a means to get it out, it was semi-frying his brain but probably needed a living host, strange for a piece of cybertech but not uncommon. 

They did require organic material to begin with after all, they could use anything from humans to zygons to time...lords… 

_ “You don’t know…”  _

The Master wasn’t  _ that  _ stupid, he couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible… 

_ “I’ll tell you another time... “  _

Her fingers stall over her keyboard, before taping a few buttons to find instead, his medical scans. 

She stands up, pushing her chair behind her as she leaves the room, two steps at a time until she enters a light jog. 

  
  


* * *

He only thinks very briefly about how easy it had been for the Rani to push her way into his mind, a singular touch and she’d been able to go anywhere she wanted to. 

She’d never been an expert at telepathy either, that had always been… His features screw up and he leans back in the bed, feeling the Cyberium roll it’s way over his brain and neurons, creating a dull and pleasant cloud of thought block out that seemed to be useful but highly frustrating at the same time. 

He wasn’t himself huh? No, he wasn’t, he was better, for the first time in a long time he was  _ better  _ than what had come before him, who needed an army of corpses in steel when you could hold every piece of knowledge in your brain  _ and  _ have an army of your own. 

There are heels approaching his door in a hurry and he wonders what has the Rani in a rush to see him, many she’s finally decided to kill him- No, she’s too smart for that, she still believes that the Doctor would come and avenge him… No idea that the Doctor won’t come for it, the Doctor does not need him. 

“It’s converting you.” She says instead of a greeting, walking through his door in a splenda of red and black, hair pulled out of her face and earrings swinging, “The Cyberium, it’s converting you.” 

He turns his attention to her and tilts his head, watching as she walks towards him, fearless and unafraid, like she wasn’t aware just how much he wanted to break her neck because she was, like him, made with a little piece of the Doctor inside of her and it would be so easy… So, so  _ easy  _ to just kill her and have one less piece of the Doctor in the universe. 

But there is a voice that tells him not to, he’s not sure he likes it, it’s distinctly scottish and tinged in sickly sweet lies bathed in honey. 

The Rani stares at him with wide eyes, they look almost like his and he is reminded briefly of her first face from the academy, the one he watched grow up in time with the others, but her skin is darker than back in the day and she is distinctly both warmer and colder at the same time. 

“You aren’t listening to me.” She sounds like a child, then she frowns like one too, before she blinks and rolls them and paces the length of the now more than empty room, “You need to tell me how you ended up with the cyberium in your head, no doubts it’s related to the Doctor but it’s  _ converting  _ you, it’s slow moving but have your thoughts been sluggish lately?”

He doesn’t answer and just keeps staring at her, he doesn’t move, doesn’t blink and she pauses in her pacing to look at him. 

Her head tilts, then straightens again, before she asks softly, “Are you before or after Missy?”

This, gets him to laugh, because like hell is he going to answer that. 

“Not telling.”    
  
“Of course you aren’t going to tell me, you must keep your secrets.” There’s a tired note in her voice as she starts pacing again, heels clacking along the floor like drums beating, she stops when she reaches the wall, tapping them together at the back and then twists to walk again, “I’ll work it out eventually, it’s low on the list after all.”

Her lips form words as she goes, some get spoken out loud and others remain only spoken in her mind, which is covered by so many walls he cannot even fathom touching the first one without pain. 

He decides it’s not worth his focus anymore, so loses himself in the visions of all the ways he could slit her throat and then make sure to do it again during her regeneration, kill her once and for all… His fingers itch for a weapon, maybe a knife… A nice, small stab in the back… Par the course- 

The Rani sings four notes, his mind stops reeling and his attention snaps to her like a rubberband. 

She does it again, the same four notes, she’s looking at him as he does it and he can feel the hair on his neck stand to attention, before his lips open and he reciprocates the melody before he can stop it. 

He and the Rani are not the same, but in a different way from the Doctor and him, especially now… The Rani has always been smarter for one, still easy to kill, but she didn’t let people stop her from doing what she needed to, brain always moving, neurons firing. 

“Before or after?” She asks, he purses his lips and shakes his head, she sings the same four notes, he replies with the same. 

A personal code, the Doctor tapped it out, he tapped it in time, the Rani sang it and he sang it back. 

“.....I want my Doctor.” He finally says and the Rani tilts her head at him, then smiles briefly, as if to say,  _ ‘Of course you do, you silly old man’  _ and it annoys him to no end. 

He decides, before he escapes, he will spend time killing the Rani slowly, there aren’t many left now but he will make sure every single one dies… Then, he’ll make sure the Doctor kills him.

Because only Theta Sigma Lungbarrow could kill him, only then would he happily stay dead. 

  
  


* * *

The notes are a mean trick, but she’s not above them, never has been. 

They are a memory for her, a melody that plays in her dreams in time with the nightmares that would plague her as a child in the years following her looking in the schism, the melody that was only quieted when she held two other hands in her own and played hide and seek in the hallways of the lower years of her time at the Academy. 

She can see the recognition in his eyes of what she’s doing, she can also see the predatory gleam that makes her know that he will try to kill her the first chance he gets. 

Such a personal code were those four notes, first things they hear when they emerge are those notes, the beats of their hearts… 

The Rani wonders if he knows just how pathetic he sounds, asking for his Doctor, he says ‘Doctor’ in the same way he used to say ‘Husband’ and it’s so pathetic. 

But it just makes her want to help more and she can’t decide if it’s her own emotions or her need to survive that’s telling her to help. 

“Do you know how broken you are?” She asks him and watches the anger spark in his eyes, before it dims and then brightens again in a singular moment of time, “So, so broken, Koschei Oakdown, what a foolish, broken man, pining for the one person in the universe who can never ever bring themselves to kill  _ him.”  _

She’s playing with fire as she takes a step towards him, but she’s worked it out and she doesn’t want a vegetable as an old friend, he stares at her with so much malice it almost reminds her of a human. 

“So broken, that you want to die? When the feeling of wanting an eternal end goes against every nerve in your body that makes you want to  _ survive-”  _ She sings the four notes again and watches him flinch, before his mouth opens and he replies with the same four notes, so she takes another step towards him, “You are frying your own brain and letting yourself be converted by downgraded  _ Cybertech  _ honestly, it’s a wonder you’ve made it this far-” 

He’s up and off of his bed in a second, he’s coming to kill her and it just proves her point further, emotion shows up on his face and it brings such a glee to her bones to watch him go for her throat. 

She steps out of his way with so much ease that she almost laughs again, his eyes are ablaze and it reminds her of weekends spent terrorising. 

There’s an indigent kind of rage throughout them. 

He comes for her and she moves, she never attacks him, no, that would be too easy and too quick of a win. 

“Let me have it…” She coos instead, watches him twitch, wonders if that thing in his head has any control over him, “It’s converting you, let me have it!” 

He shakes his head, fury fading a bit and he actually backs off to circle her and she follows his gaze, circling herself in one spot, “Why would I let you have it?”   
  
“Because you know I will get further in seeing how it works…” 

“I know how it works-”    
  
“Do you? Because if you did, you would know that there’s little corners of your brain being turned to metal, slowly but eventually it’s going to claw its way around every single neuron in your pathetic little head until it controls every inch of you.” He stares at her for a moment, then turns away, she taps her heels in the same formation as the four notes and his attention snaps to her, “You know, I wondered what you were doing with your lives, but here we are… Me, with my own planet, people who respect me and follow my every word…” 

The Master watches her as she now circles him, her heels getting closer to the sound of what must be the pits of the damned to him. 

“...And here you are, with a metallic piece of pocket computer stored into your brain, no weapons or plans and nothing  _ interesting  _ happening in your life-”    
  
“ _ I Destroyed Gallifrey.”  _

She stops now, to look at him, cocking her eyebrows upwards, “No, darling, that was the Doctor with the Moment.”    
  
Now it’s his turn to look at her, calculations running through his eyes but she gets there first-

“It came back?” Her voice is a lot quieter then she’d meant it to be, “It came back? Who let it come back-” Her heels are clicking on the floor in rage as she moves in anger herself now, pushes him back with only her steps, “DID THE DOCTOR BRING IT BACK?” She yells it and she hopes it shakes the walls. 

The Rani stares the Master down, she can feel her own anger bubbling underneath her skin now, almost like regeneration but slow and deep, cutting through any pieces of sanity she would throw into the fray. 

“Why did the Doctor bring it back?” She snarls and he hits the wall, “We all hate it- Why would they-” 

He waves his hand, but his face falters and she wonders if he knows how open this face of his is, “I blame it on Guilt.” 

“Why,” She begins, eyes fixed on him, a lashing ready on her tongue, “are they such a sentimental fool?”

The Master waves his hand again, “No clue, gone again now.” 

“How?”    
  
“Not telling-”   
  
“HOW?!” And her voice roars. 

Silence stretches on and she can see him debate telling her or not, she can feel tears welling up in her eyes out of frustration. 

“I started with the Citadel and the Lord President, slit his throat and then stabbed both his hearts as his regeneration started.” His voice is even, there’s no pleasure from the killing this time, she lets him past her and he sits on the bed, “A small step and I killed almost every high ranking official in the same way- Didn’t find Rassilon.” 

She nods and motions for him to continue. 

“I gathered up the children and sent them away on a Tardis.” He says it softly, before he sits up straighter, doesn’t offer more and she doesn’t ask, “Then I set some fires, well, I say  _ some  _ there were a lot, bombs too, broke the glass on the Citadel with so much ease- It was so easy to break.” 

The Rani leans against the wall, “What else?” 

“I kept as many bodies as I could and then converted them,” Now, he sounds proud of himself. Smile threatening to climb off of his face in so much malice, “My own army of  _ Cybermasters-” _

She snorts, “Cyber-Masters? You know how stupid that sounds right?”

“The Doctor wasn’t receptive to it either… I don’t understand, I thought it was a good name-” 

“It is not, it sounds like an Edgy Earth Teen’s delusional tyraids.” 

He glares at her, “I’ve said enough.” 

“Why did you destroy Gallifrey?” She pushes off of the wall and comes to stand in front of him, still on guard of course, one couldn’t let it drop in front of him, “Knowing you, the Doctor must be involved somehow…” 

He falls back against the bed, “I’ve said enough.” 

She doesn’t argue this time, because he has said enough… 

Now, she has an army to locate. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


She has to commend him on style, not out loud of course, but internally as she looks sends drones out across the universe to look for his bloody army. 

This is what leads her not to look for the army, but for someone else, a name on the list of people he didn’t end up killing… She looks for him instead because whilst there’s an army out there, the Master won’t send it off without him. 

He’s so predictable and it’s a waste of time. 

If there’s one other person in this universe she would happily burn to the ground, it was the man who had started this whole problem and issue. 

Not that she's not thankful for her life, her mind, who knows what this universe would be like without her in it. 

But, she still wants to watch someone burn and if it can’t be her birth planet… 

  
Might as well be the man who helped find it. 

* * *

  
  


He has a plan. 

He’d thought it out, planned it out and it’s been long enough now… She doesn’t let her guard down ever, but if she thought he were asleep… 

He’d found pieces of metal, whoever had cleared the room hadn’t been as thorough as she should have had them be and it’s just enough that he can… Work, it’s so simple, so quick and painful too. 

Enough to induce regeneration, before going in for a second strike… 

  
  


He was going to kill her and get out of here, finally. 

_ Finally.  _

* * *

  
  


He’s too quiet, too quiet and she knows he’s planning something. 

It’s either her death or an escape, or both, probably both, kill her and escape. 

Judging by his mind, he probably wasn’t going to let her regenerate if she lets him get close enough to touch her. 

She was bored enough that she considered letting him try it, just once, just to see if he could. 

Missy had always claimed she was twenty-seven steps ahead of everyone one else, but lamented there was only one person who could think more steps ahead than her. 

The Rani watches him sharpen pieces of metal on his bed, thinking she doesn’t notice- Or knows that she notices but does it anyway -and she wonders how he thinks he’ll do it. 

Will he go for her throat? No, that was always his main thing with the Doctor, the kinky fuck. 

Probably, he’ll go for the back of her neck and her brain stems, move to make sure she can’t see him before he strikes at her, then so she can’t get away in time to regenerate and he’ll kill her for real. 

But, she won’t let that happen, she likes breathing. 

She wonders, if- at this moment in time -he does though. 

* * *

  
  


Wine dripped from the lips that spoke to her, others threw honey at her, the other honest people in the room were the ones getting far too drunk to care what they were saying to her. 

There is a kind of boredom to these events that hits too close and reminds her of her childhood spent being dragged around parties and paraded about as her parents celebrated her in public and then berated her once she got home for not being the best. 

She lets her people govern themselves because it’s easier and it saves time, she only steps in when they try to go to war with one another because  _ War  _ isn’t productive in the slightest, she likes the chaos but not when it takes time away from better things. 

Her glass is refilled by Marti as he passes, he’s getting up there in age whilst she looks the same as the day she hired him and she will miss him, briefly, because he always knew when she needed her drink refreshing at events like these, like a sixth sense. 

Not that such things existed. 

But more wine was helpful as her Prime Minister kept droning on next to her about whatever, now he, she would not miss, made obvious by the fact that she only ever referred to him as the ‘Prime Minister’ and never his name… Mostly because she didn’t remember or make note of it. 

The Rani smiles and nods, keeping up her feigned interest in whatever he was talking about and interjecting with a comment every now and then, ever the immortal Queen for this string of planets under her control. 

She wished, briefly for better company, then realised the better company would be the sort who’d attempt to kill her. 

“Her Highness, is a lover of the arts I believe… Aren’t you My Rani?” Prime Minister addresses her directly and she smiles, opening her mouth to answer before he breezes straight past her into talking again, “Of course she is, she’s rarely not entertained by…” 

He trails off into silence, eyes widening as the room has now shifted to silence and with their gaze on him, he turns back to look at her, blinks and then before he can even apologise she’s inclined her head to the guards. 

Murmurs escape into the room,  _ “I cannot believe he just did that!”  _ Comes from somewhere to her left as heavy footsteps start and she downs what is left of her drink, she looks at the Home Secretary, a larger man of mixed species descent, she likes him better. 

“Kal, I believe you’ve just been promoted, effective immediately.” She speaks and the room is caught on her, eyes looking her over, some are smiling with a bright light and she thinks that okay, maybe she does love her people, “I know there’s typically a vote of no confidence… But, desperate times.” 

She watches the large gentleman fall to one knee, “I pledge myself to you, my Queen, in the service of you and your people.” 

The Rani pats him on the head, “You may rise, Prime Minister Kal.” He rises and bows low, the crowd claps, before she offers her wine glass out and it is refilled, “Let us celebrate… Take the Former Prime Minister to my lab.” 

The Guards nod once at her, dragging the man away and down the hallway, his yelling annoying and rude beyond belief. 

She turns to the rest of the guests, “Shall we continue the festivities?” 

* * *

  
  


She knew she was cruel and well, she rather liked it. 

It wasn’t something she missed often, she did have her softer moments but… Cruel was where she often returned to in the pursuit of science, what did people expect of her?

Still, she had moments of kindness… Because she was a little sentimental sometimes. 

The door opens when it senses her and she steps to the side, narrowly avoiding a projectile, “I bought wine.” 

The Master halts in aiming his shot, “What kind?”

“Older than us.” She holds up the bottle, then a second one in her other hand, “Figured you might like to get drunk.” 

Slowly, he lowers the small disc of sharp metal and she walks towards him, “You, are being nice… Why?”   
  
“Oh, my former prime minister is quietly rotting away in fear in my lab.” 

“What did he do?”   
  
“He disrespected me and I know for a fact, he’s been cheating on his partner… Politicians.” She grumbles and tips her bottle back to her lips as she throws him his, which he catches with ease, “Maybe it’s cruel, but honestly I was waiting for him to die, so it’s a win-win situation in my eyes.” 

The Master raises his eyebrows as he undoes the cork on his own bottle, she sidesteps it when it pops off, he frowned, “It’s not cruel, not for you… You could have killed him and his whole family.” 

“Ugh, waste of time.”    
  
“Right, as ever, you value time…” His eyes roll and she hides a smile. 

She shrugs, laughing a bit as she twirls the thought in her head, “Honestly it gave me an excuse to leave, these parties always remind me far too much of your Father’s.” 

He twitches at this, then hoists his own bottle up, “Those were boring, always, nothing beats them… Only Theta could make them bearable.”    
  
“When he was allowed to attend… Do you remember when he blew up the fountain with us that one year?”

“And then I got the blame?”   
  
“Yes.” He glares at her and she laughs, admittedly already tipsy, “Are you before or after?” 

Her soft question makes him look at her properly, before he frowns and tips his bottle back again, “I don’t know.” 

The Rani blinks at him, “How could you not know?”

“Why aren’t I killing you right now?”   
  
“Wine.”    
  
“Right…” He takes another sip, then another and another before flopping back down into his bed, “Will you ever let me out?” 

She shrugs, “Maybe, I was gonna get you a therapist.” 

“You were going to what-”   
  
“Well, I still am, you just have to be less stabby.” 

“I’m always stabby.” 

She sips her wine, he does the same, his bottle is half empty already, “How are you feeling?”   
  
“Stabby.” 

She snorts, she can’t help it and it reminds her of nights spent with eight other time lords, drinking and thinking the sky went on forever. 

“Do you remember when we used to hot wire warp drives?” His voice breaks through the silence and she crosses her arms, then nods, “Magnus and Vansell always bet that we couldn’t, five minutes later, Theta was driving us across the plains of my estate.” 

Her lips quirk upwards and he sits up again, then throws a projectile, she steps away from it, “Stop trying to kill me, I’m trying to help. “   
  
“I don’t want your help.”    
  
“You have a piece of cyber-tech in your brain, you don’t know where you are in your timestream and you miss your husband beyond measures.” Her voice surprises even her, with the lack of cool toning and drawn out cruel intentions. 

He notices this, then downs the rest of the bottle of wine in one go, before flopping back against the pillows, “So what if I miss my husband? He’s too good for me anyway.” 

This pulls a very genuine laugh from her, “No, no he isn’t.” He looks at her, eyes wide and dark and they remind her of his first face, when he confessed- Very drunk then as well -that he couldn’t imagine life without Thet- The Doctor. 

She remembers the night he told her he wanted to be a Lungbarrow. 

“I can never reach him, Ushas.” The use of her given name surprises her enough that she tilts her head at him, there’s sadness in his eyes that goes so deep and so far, she cannot reach it, “He’s so high above me, so bright, so brilliant.” 

Ushas stands up taller, sips her wine and looks at him pointedly, “He’s not above you, there’s only one person above you both.”    
  
“Oh yeah? Who’s that?”    
  
“Well, me of course.” 

This has him sat up again, properly, glaring at her and she closes her eyes for a second before she laughs and then- 

What reaches her first is the shattering of the wine bottle as it falls from her hand, then the pain in her side and then- 

“Not so above me now, huh Rani?”

She looks at him, then pulls the metal from her side, coated in her blood, “You bastard-” The energy builds in her, “-I liked this face-”    
  
Dimly, she registers the pain, registers that he’s starting to stand, wobbling but still coming towards her and she shouts, once. 

A name leaves her lips, before he takes even one more step towards her and she runs as fast as she can out of his room, leaving shattered glass and angry words being yelled behind her as she goes, locking the door. 

Hearing the click she feels the cool metal, she should have known- Oh, yes, this is what he felt like when she got a step ahead of him. 

His room- Cell- Is in lockdown, will be until she undoes it, until she says the name again and it burns on her tongue and on her lips as her hearts ache dimly because of it. 

He won’t get out, he won’t get to her before she’s regenerated. 

* * *

  
  


Her blood leaves a trail, but she has to put distance between her and him, because if he gets out- If he gets out she’s dead and she doesn’t want to die, dear Other does she  _ not want to die like this.  _

She can feel energy in her blood, it stings and burns like lightning as this form of hers is pulled apart, she will mourn the loss of the closest form she’s had to her first in so long and it- Burns, but she keeps going, knowing she can’t keep it at bay properly for long or else she will die anyway. 

Her home is large and vast, when she reaches the entrance hall she is glad to find it deserted beyond all measure and she lets herself stop moving. 

Lets the energy pulse through her, knowing that two floors down, under the ground is a man screaming to be let out to finish the job he’s started. 

But, she trapped him- She… She trapped him in a force field that will take so many minds to undo- 

She cries out, bile rising in her throat and then… 

Then she hears the  _ noise.  _

It’s like a pulsing heartbeat, like a gallifreyan heartbeat but imperfect in the way it screeches, the way it pulls at the air as it materialises. 

“No- Brakes-” She mutters and then falls down the stairs when she sees a blue box standing in the middle of her hall. 

The door opens as she feels it build up inside her finally and- 

She is gone within an instance and brought back at the same time. 

  
The first accent she hears is distinctly… To her disgust…  _ Northern.  _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Down down down into regeneration... But not everything is what it seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm basically stuck in my house for the next couple weeks, so expect lots of procrastination updates!!!
> 
> Also, I apologise in advance to those coming from the Thoschei Rights discord server where I've been sharing excerpts of this fic... And to the people in the comments. 
> 
> I also upped the chapter count to 5 instead of 3 due to my realising that 3 chapters really wasn't gonna cut it. 
> 
> Enjoy! See you soon!

The fingers checking her pulse are a tawny brown colour that pulse with life, glows with it really… In a very, unstandable and human way… 

New eyes, they tingle when she opens them further to scan the body in front of her, kneeling before her and it seems apt.. It always seems apt when people bow to her… 

“Are you okay?”  _ Northern, Yorkshire…  _ “Did you just regenerate?”  _ How do you know about… Oh, yes, the box…  _ “You look very alive, what’s your name? Or do you not remember that yet?”    
  
Her name, admittedly does escape her, but that’s typical when your insides are curled up in a ball and quietly unfurling once every few seconds in order to place something back on a shelf inside her mind- 

She bolts upright and looks the young woman in the face, “TARDIS, back- Back in the TARDIS you came here in- now get her- Them? Her? I’m not sure just back inside-” 

Her feet wobble and she realises her shoes are too big- Oh great, she’s shorter again, that was  _ always  _ fun… She is caught, a moment later by the young woman- Human, taller than her with tawny skin that reminds her of her first body- Oh, that was it. 

“My name is Ushas.” Her words feel muddled, as she takes in the details of the human’s face, she moves towards the TARDIS with Ushas carefully, “You have lovely eyes.” 

Oh, now that seemed out of character for her but they make it into the TARDIS and she slams the doors shut. 

A pulse runs through her and she misses her own TARDIS that is set up in her bedroom upstairs, too far away and too precious.

Two more humans greet her, before- 

“Yaz, did you find her?” It’s loud and… American. 

_ Northerners and an American, Theta, is this the company you keep? _

“I don’t think so… I definitely found a timelord though.” The Young Woman- Yaz? Yaz. -States this and Ushas thinks that her face is definitely the most interesting in the room and- 

She groans, turns towards the TARDIS console and walks towards it, “No, I am not the Doctor before you ask- I would rather die than ever, ever be the Doctor.” 

Who she is sure is the American looks at her with a look she only associates with the man she’s put two floors and a set of TARDIS doors between them, so she looks him over once and then shakes her head. 

“Where’s the Doctor?” It’s a stupid question that flies out before she can stop it and- “Someone is going to have to catch me, now-” 

The world disappears like it always does. 

* * *

  
  


“She.. Is definitely not the Doctor…” Jack stated, with the unconscious woman in his arms, he turned to the TARDIS, “Why take us to someone who was offended to even be thought of as possibly the Doctor- Am I holding the Master in my arms?”

The TARDIS made some noise, like it was laughing.

“I think that’s a no.” Graham stated plainly, then looked sheepish when Yaz turned to look at him, with Ryan following a moment later, “....The Doctor talks to her, she’s alive isn’t she? Might as well learn how to understand her…” 

More noise and Jack laughed. 

“She said her name was Ushas.” Yaz spoke looking back at the doors once, before approaching Jack and the woman, “She looked… Scared of something? I think she regenerated, it’s the only explanation I can think of for seeing someone go from black haired to ginger.” 

Scared… But what of? What had she been so quick to shut the doors of the TARDIS on out there? 

A hand landed on her shoulder, Ryan’s, “If she’s scared, then maybe the Doctor is here?” His voice is firm and quiet, she rests on it for a moment, her question had been the same. 

“I don’t think so, since she asked where the Doctor was herself.” Jack admitted, lowering himself and Ushas to the floor, him on his knees with the woman’s head cradled ever so gently as she slept, “But, the TARDIS usually knows what the best path to the Doctor is… It’s why she came to get me, then came to get you three, no one is more worried about the Doctor than the TARDIS.” 

That was probably true, Yaz had never seen anything to contradict it.

“Now, what she was running from… That’s more concerning, I’m gonna try and scan the area for hostile life forms, but until I do that, no running off ya hear?” He’s very firm in this and it’s a sting, whether he knows it or not because the Doctor runs through Yaz’s head unbidden. 

Yaz turns her eyes back to the door.

“Got it, no running off.” 

* * *

  
  


That  _ Bitch  _ that complete and utter-  _ Bitch.  _

He’d gotten caught up in how wonderful that look of surprise on her face was, how anger and that little thrill of  _ fear  _ had struck across her face like the sharpest and most electric piece of lightning. 

But honestly, how hadn’t she seen that coming? And she called The Doctor a sentimental and nostalgic fool when in actuality… 

He traces his fingers along the force field surrounding him, a small space, he is reminded of when he trapped the little pet in here, replaced in space by a Kaassavin…

Well, to be fair, he’d stolen the design from her a very long time ago. 

She was going to regenerate, he’d had the perfect chance and he’d wasted it because of how good a look of  _ What  _ was on The Rani’s face… Well, it didn't matter he’d simply hunt her down and kill her again. 

And he wouldn’t let petty glee blind him this time, The Rani would die. 

Though, he did enjoy the desperation on her face as she yelled the name that trapped him in here, must be a voice activated code word… 

“Millenia…” He murmurs, feeling the hum of the force field around him, “Who’s a sentimental fool now, Ushas?” 

* * *

  
  


She hates regenerating, she loves living, her life is her own and all that… But  _ Regeneration  _ was not a picnic she liked to visit as often as others did. 

Pulling herself back together is getting harder, she curses the Master and then curses her stupidity… And then curses the Master more. 

The american had caught her, he’d been familiar now that she thinks about it… Whispering in the wind of an immortal and insufferable man who kissed a lot of people, she didn’t pay attention to universe politics but she did enjoy the stories. 

She knows she is not who the TARDIS had been looking for, it tells her as much and she simply lets it sort through her memories and her mind, finding the bits and pieces it needed. 

In return it assists in sorting out her atoms, of slotting her timeline into the right places and she begins to hear conversation as she comes back to herself, whole and a bit restless. 

Her eyes flutter open, tingle still there as she swirls her gaze around the room, her head is braced on someone’s lap and she looks up to see the man above her, she looks at him pointedly, “I’ve heard of you.” 

Jack Harkness smiles, rakishly and a little dastardly, “Good things I hope?”

She meets his eyes and grins a little herself, “A mixture, but I’ve heard you know what you're doing.” He laughs now, a small thing that brings attention to the room back to everyone else, as she hears people shifting around. 

“Yaz said you told her your name was Ushas?”

“Ah, a little piece of muddling, you know, regeneration and all that- My name is The Rani, that is my title, you may use it if you wish and I would prefer it.” 

He nods once, “Okay then, Rani.” She sits up and places a hand to her forehead, dizzy but it fades quickly enough, “I hate to hurry things along, but what were you running from?”

_ Running from.. Ah-  _ “Man who stabbed me, I should go see him, stab him back.” She goes to stand, but there’s a hand on her shoulder, which she glares at pointedly.

“Shouldn’t really stab a guy-” 

“Trust me, he deserves it.” The Rani pushes his hand on her shoulder and stands up, swaying greets her but fades quickly, she gets a good look over the TARDIS and stops moving again, “Why in the name of many universal deities… Does this place look like a geology collection?”

Silence greets her, before she turns her gaze to the humans again, her eyes find Yaz first, first face and all that jazz, but she doesn’t feel the need to get to know them yet… Then she rests her eyes on the other two, an up there human and a young man. 

“Names?” She prompts, they all blink at her as she adjusts her coat and finds a hole in it, paler hands cradle her side and it takes her a moment to realise they are hers. 

Yaz steps forwards, “Yasmin Khan.” She offers her hand and The Rani ignores it, in favour of raising her eyebrows expectantly to the two men with her.

“Ryan.” The younger man speaks, he looks at her skeptically- Good, Theta had collected someone who did that without prompting, “This is my granddad Graham.” 

She nods and turns in a slow circle, very aware that no eyes are leaving her, so she raises her hands and takes in the freckled but golden skin, she needs to change her shoes soon or she’ll get blisters… 

Her head shifts and she catches the colour of it, snatching it up and pulling it directly into her gaze, “Am I ginger?”

“Yes?” Graham answers, “Were you not always?”

“No, I have been before- Should have seen Theta’s face when he saw me, priceless -but I didn’t expect it…” She drops her hair and turns to face Jack again, then stops and turns to face Yasmin instead, “So, have you come looking for the Doctor?”

Relief fills their faces in a single second and the Rani almost feels bad that she will have to rip it away from them, “Is she here?”

“No.” 

She watches Yasmin positively bristle, “Well, do you know where she is?”

“No.” The Rani tilts her head and then turns her eyes to the ceiling, “But, the TARDIS knows that the one person who can always find her without fail is here on my planet with me.” 

Eyes still follow her as she pats the console, then hops off the raised platform back towards the doors. 

“She also knows the problem with this plan.” 

She watches Ryan blink once, then say calmly, “The man who stabbed you?”

“Yes.” The Rani opens the doors, both at the same time and steps out, there aren’t any alarms blaring so she was going to guess that he hadn’t gotten out, “I believe Jack is probably the one most acquainted with him, though you lot may have met him, I don’t know.” 

They all exchange a look, as Jack Harkness looks at her with a grim expression. 

“The Master is here isn’t he?”

She takes a step out of the TARDIS and walks in the direction of her bedroom, not bothering to check if they follow her. 

But they do, they’re footsteps echo with hers in her entrance hall.

* * *

  
  


Everything shines with a polish that Yaz would only ever associate with images of palaces, places that sat as shrines to Royalty and religion and whoever The Rani was she walked in this space like it was her own. 

Red hair running down her back in short curls, shoes a little big but as she followed the new timelord, she realised she was walking in the wake of a Queen. 

Her steps were long and confident, people passed then paused and then whispered before someone called out.

“HER HIGHNESS HAS REGENERATED!” It was a shout and it echoed out, “LONG LIVE THE IMMORTAL RANI!” 

Soft and fluid chaos erupts as people crowd doorways and corners.

She can feel the others at her back, as Jack jogs to keep up with the Rani who keeps walking forwards, they start talking but they keep it quiet enough that no one else can hear them. 

“Should we trust her?” Ryan asks her to the right, “I mean, we are kind of following her without much of a reason, Jack seems interested in her too.” 

Yaz looked at the way Jack was animatedly talking and smiling, at the way The Rani was nodding and laughing once in a while, “Oh yeah, he’s definitely interested in her.” 

She watched as eyes the same colour as the night sky flitted backwards towards them, as if she’d heard what they were talking about and the woman’s lips quirked upwards towards the ceiling as she smiled wider ahead of them. 

As they walk, The Rani removes her coat, slinging it over one arm and revealing a sleeveless top with a massive hole in one side, Yaz would hazard a guess that had been where she was stabbed. 

“I don’t think we can trust her.” She speaks honestly, looking quickly over her shoulder at them both, keeping up more with the two beings in front of them, “But I also think she’s our best chance at finding the Doctor.” 

Neither of them offered up a retort, or an argument so on they went. 

* * *

  
  


The room they walk into is draped with dark colours, red mostly but pieces of a deep almost black blue peek out from areas, pillows on the bed and warmth takes them over. 

A large set of double doors sits against one wall, made of dark oak panelling and carved with sharp and soft spirals, it reminded Yaz of the symbols that sat along the lift in the floor of the Doctor’s TARDIS and assumed it was the same language. 

The Rani swipes her hands across the panels and they open up, revealing what has got to be another TARDIS, “Hi Darling.” The woman walks forwards, greeting the machine as it seems to almost hum. 

Yaz’s eyes are caught by the difference, where the Doctor’s TARDIS is sleek, cool and warm in crystals this TARDIS is warmed slowly by a fire that lights itself in a heath towards the back of the room, it roars to life the moment the doors are opened. 

Books line the walls, most titled in languages she can only just understand, before she blinks and it’s all in english- Apart from the circular that dots the place, that remains locked up, chairs and sofas are shoved into places and there’s a soft scent of lavender that fills the area. 

The console starts to rise out of the floor, a thing that sits like a hexagon with a warm pulsing being in the center of the panels of buttons, there are levers but it’s so organised that Yaz thinks quietly to herself that any one of them could learn how to fly it. 

Golden fingers flick a switch on the console and doors open themselves to their left, The Rani moves towards them, disappearing from their view and leaving the small assembled group in the main console room of her TARDIS. 

Ryan whistles looking up at the ceiling and she follows his gaze upwards to see panes of glass covering it, different patches of skies in day and night, twilight, dusk and dawn sit up above them, causing a kaleidoscope of light to echo around the chamber. 

“This is…” Graham spins on the spot, aching to get a look, “Grand, now ain’t it?” He surveys the room again, just like Yaz had, this TARDIS and it’s collection of finary. 

They hear laughter, it starts off a little cruel but comes back to a bit joyous, “Thank you, she appreciates the compliment.” The Rani’s voice is bright as she appears again, holding clothing in her arms, feet bare against the wooden and metal lined floors, “She’s a bit skeptical of you of course, since you came here in the Doctor’s TARDIS.”

Shoes land on the floor, a pair of knee high boots just like the pair she’d originally been wearing, only with a bit more of a heel to them, “Do TARDIS get jealous then?” Graham asks, genuinely curious. 

He receives a short and curt nod in reply as she starts to pull clothing on. 

The Rani seems to have an appreciation for simple but elegant clothing, in a more well put together outfit than Yaz has ever seen on a timelord, she watches the woman wave her hand in the air once before Jack opens his mouth.

“So, as I said, we’re looking for the Doctor and since you have the Master in your basement…” She pulls on a coat, dark grey in colour with a large patch of deep red down the back, then secures it with a belt, “...You may be able to help us, get him to help us find the Doctor?”

She chuckles, standing up straight before picking the boots up and walking to one of the chairs, trousers already on, “Won’t need much convincing, there’s only one person in this universe who has permission to kill the Doctor once and for all, vice versa.” 

“Who’s that then?” Yaz asks, then feels a little foolish a second later, “Oh, the Master right?”

Eyes lock onto her as the Rani’s smile dims down a little bit before widening into a smirk, “Yes, exactly, but then again- I have to stab him before we do anything else.” 

“What is the obsession with stabbing?!” Ryan breaks through, before the conversation can really go anywhere else, “Is it something petty? It sounds like it.” 

The Rani looks at him once, then twice, then tilts her head like he’s said something interesting, “Do you have siblings, Ryan?” Her fingers pull the zip on the first boot up and the sound almost echoes.

“No.” He thinks it over for a moment, then tilts his own head at the woman “Is the Master your brother?”

“No… Not biologically, more like a surrogate brother.” She pulls the second boot on and moves to do the zip, “If someone in this room does have a sibling, they’ll understand the urge to stab one, especially if they won’t actually die from it just suffer some mild discomfort.” 

They all, as one unit looked at her like she’s insane and she raises her eyebrows.

“I grew up with him, have known him for almost my entire life… Same with the Doctor, went to the Academy with them both.” Her smile disappears as she stands up again, shaking her hair out behind her in a wave of crimson colour, hands coming to scope it back into a high ponytail, “Trust me, you will be glad you missed that, the Sonnets composed- The bratty rivalry that turned into flirting the longer I had to watch it.” 

She takes their looks in stride as she walks over to her console, pressing a couple of buttons and switches. 

“I mean consider it, almost three thousand years of bickering between the two of them, endless.” 

Yaz was reminded of Sonya, “I get it.” 

“Older sister?”

“How did you-”    
  
The Rani laughed, “The look of tiredness that took over your face my dear, gives it away quite nicely.” A look passes across her face, causing her small nose to scrunch up a little bit and her red tinged eyebrows to furrow, before everything releases, “This face likes to joke it seems, bit happier too… Strange.” 

“Why is that strange?”   
  
“I’m not usually the happy go lucky looking one.” Her eyes seem wide, dark and endless as she says this and Yaz twigs on something that she said. 

She moves to ask the question on her tongue, but The Rani pulls up a feed on screens that appear the moment she flips another switch, bookshelves moving apart to reveal them. 

It shows a man not unfamiliar to her, dishevelled and without his suit jacket, carefully pawing at the edges of a force field, eyes wide as he studies it. 

“You really do have the Master locked up-” Yaz begins but then she spots the blood on the floor in front of him, turns back to look at the other time lord who stands at the console, one hand on it and her eyes trained on the monitor with so much rage that it leaks into the room, “-down there…” 

Yaz looks at Ryan, Ryan looks at Yaz, both feeling a little helpless. 

* * *

  
  


_ Everything is deadlock sealed.  _

_ The door, the window, the shimmer of forcefield that covered everything- The same one she traces her fingers across now.  _

_ She flicks open her phone with one hand, traces the lines of the forcefield with the other.  _

_ Gods, she forgot how boring prison was, always better when she was the one doing the breaking out you see? It was one of her favourite past times when River was still in Stormcage, breaking her out to see something wonderful in the universe.  _

_ It only took her two days to finally admit to herself about where she was, time locked and in a bubble of space outside of her universe- Well, maybe it wasn’t her universe anymo-  _

_ “Nope, we’re still not going into that.”  _

_ Shada, time locked, bubbled and not even kind enough to stick her in cryogenic status for the majority of her sentence like most of her fellow prisoners would be in right now… Which she wasn’t even sure about, “What am I even being charged with? Being too badass? Too clever? Too-”  _

I’m so much more than you. 

_ “-mean.” Her lips pursed of their own accord, she snatched her hand back from the force field, having enough of it’s swirling energy and turned back to the window to look out at the stars, flicking her phone shut again, “Is it even something I remember doing? I have done a lot to the Judoon that I remember, what if I did something else that I don’t remember and it’s finally caught up with me?”  _

_ Talking to herself was good, meant her sanity was still intact and that she was still good company.  _

_ “Doctor, you are marvelous company, when you aren’t being a massive twat- OI!” She glared at the space outside and flicked her phone open again, then closed it, then opened it again and then checked the signal- “You useless thing, I do so much to you and you won’t work in a stupid bubble universe I swear-”  _

_ She closes it, stuffs it in her pocket and pulls out her sonic, then puts her sonic back in her pocket again, both things were useless in this situation.  _

_ “Maybe you could try using the sonic to boost the signal? OH! Good idea Doctor- Well, thank you, I do have my moments-”  _

_ Time is going to pass differently here then back out in the universe she calls home, she can feel it- She can’t, however know or feel in what way… “Slower or faster? Will I get back and have missed the chance to see my Fam? Will I get back to find the Master dead- No, no, he’ll be alive as long as I am, there’s one certainty in the universe at least…”  _

_ She pulls out her sonic, opens her phone and then backtracks because she’s already done this.  _

_ “....How long have I been here already?” But no one answers, not even her as she turns her gaze back on to the stars shining outside.  _

_ She starts to pace, back and forth, to and through, “Of course, the Master destroys Gallifrey, but doesn’t come for Shada prison, of course- Then again there’s probably enough people locked up in here that want to kill him and are capable of that, myself included- You don’t want to kill him, if you did you would have done that with the Death Particle, but you handed it off to-”  _

_ Wide dark and impossible eyes enter her head, she shakes them away but they get replaced by a pair of blue ones instead, looking at her with so much hope- Then they are brown again with flecks of gold and hatred runs in them, but the hope is still there- Always there-  _

_ “No.” She tells herself, stops pacing and leans against the wall, “Can’t think of ‘im now, too late for that.”  _

_ But, she knows he’s survived, he has to have survived- She’s been the person without him, Bow Tie may have given hope to people but he’d been so angry and she- She was angry again, she was sad and bitter, angry and losing hope all over again and it was all her own fault.  _

_ “It’s not just your fault you know, Missy betrayed you too- But you let Grace die- I didn’t know what would happen I-”  _

_ The Doctor looks around her cell, carved stone slab in the middle, one way teleport, she’d looked at that first but it was deadlocked as well, nothing she could do with the sonic or her phone.  _

_ She didn’t have the finger nails to pry the stone up, she’d tried that too but all she found herself was knocked out cold and woken up moments later with her cuts healed, bruises gone, food waiting for her.  _

_ “How long have I been here?” She asks to herself, but receives no answer.  _

_ Everything is deadlock sealed. _

_ Even her guilt.  _

* * *

  
  
  


Emotion that does not belong to him has been blaring on and off for weeks and months, years and years… Never too far, but not close enough either- Oh he enjoyed it when it got close enough that he could feel how hot and blazing their rage really was. 

He traces the invisible lines on the force field, wonders about his tissue compression eliminator and where it’s got to, then checks in with Cyberium, his only company in the sliver of space he’s been allocated. 

He wonders what the Rani looks like now, whilst feeling the Cyberium roil in the back of his head, then the emotion that yells, kicks and screams for his attention- The person on the other end not even aware that he could feel it or that she was calling out to him. 

Maybe, being trapped in the force field had been a good thing, he was getting precious hours to sit with his own head and not bury under covers, to the point where he could see now that the telepathic pathway with someone hadn’t been closed all the way the last time she’d connected… 

The Master cannot decide whether he wants to roll his eyes at her stupidity or let himself finally cry because he can feel her right there- But then again, there was a part of the Doctor in him- Or was there? Really? Could it be that simple? 

It wasn’t like the time lords hadn’t lied before after all? All they ever really did was lie, why leave the truth where it could be found- 

No, it was all her fault, she was the Special one- She… She was the only special one. 

They were the special one and he was nothing to them, all the memories inside his head meant nothing to them in the long run, how many friends had they had? How many first hands had they held? How many enemies? How many kisses? How many classes skipped and boys were killed by rocks in rivers?

He was nothing and they were  _ Everything.  _

They had always been what he had always wanted to be.

And that… That he could not bear. 

The memory of the child though, lying there scared, afraid of who was supposed to take care of them- Oh, how that had struck a chord, he remembered children like that- He remembered being a child like that, wondering why the person he had trusted was doing this to him, why the drums in his mind driving him away from Theta-  _ His  _ Theta. 

But how many other people thought that? 

How many people said that The Doctor was… 

“LET ME OUT!” He bangs his fists against the force field and it fizzes, sending electricity coursing through him, before it stops and subsides and he is left gritting his teeth… 

Wondering how he meant  _ nothing.  _

How he felt nothing and yet still found guilty conscious buried somewhere within him.

* * *

  
  


All of the humans bodily flinch when his yell cuts through on the speakers, loud and angry, no longer lost in thought she supposed. 

They flinch when it happens again, but she’s too used to this anger now, has been for longer then they can comprehend really. 

“He’s mourning.” She speaks and watches them turn their gazes to her, one at a time, “He thinks he means nothing to the one person in the universe he means the most to.”

Yasmin Khan… The first face her new face saw, her jawline is soft but sharply turned and her eyes burn with the curiosity built to die at the hands of that reckless wonder, she looks at her and the Rani stares back, “Who’s the person he means the most to?”

The Rani hums as she approaches Yasmin, walking around her, she was very young by her standards, barely into her second decade by the look of her skin, the singing of her timeline, “Same person who means the most to him.” She smiles, then backs away to flip the switches on her console, letting her TARDIS in more fully. 

“That’s not an answer.” Yasmin points out to her, the smile on the Rani’s lips widens a little bit, Yasmin crosses her arms and approaches to stand next to her as she pushes buttons, “I’m really gonna need some answers-” 

She takes the chances to catch the human by the chin, forcing their gazes together, her grip isn’t even that tight and she can feel how fragile this being is, Yasmin stops mid-sentence as the Rani lifts her face, loosening her grip further, “No answers are waiting for you, my dear sweet ape.”

Then she lets go and Yasmin stumbles back, caught by Ryan, there’s just the right amount of fear present in their eyes to send a buzz into the Rani's brain. 

“But in all seriousness, it’s like they’re sleeping in the same bed for the first time in ages, one wakes the other up to ask if they love them- When they’re married, I know their married I officiated their wedding, I was there when their first daughter loomed, when their Granddaughter arrived as well, honestly it’s like a never ending spiel and it’s been almost  _ Three Thousand Years  _ of it.” 

She is not oblivious to the immortal moving the others behind him, like it makes a difference when it takes him a little time to come back anyway, the return from death is never instantaneous. 

Closest thing a non-timelord has ever come to regeneration. 

She claps her hands down on her console, softly, she’s not going to hurt her TARDIS after all, one of the few things she genuinely cares for in the universe and all that, “Right, first things first-” She realises she’s not giving any of them a chance to comment, but she doesn’t care, “-The Master has got to calm the fuck down- That’s how humans say it right?” 

“Um, yeah, kind of.” Ryan states, blinking at her, still hovering next to Yaz-  _ Ohhh maybe  _ -but his eyes don’t leave her for a second, he was a smart one then… Hadn’t she clocked that already? Probably, things were still at least a little fuzzy, “How are you gonna calm him down?”

The Rani opens a panel of buttons in front of her, shiny ones, that she doesn’t get to use too often.

“Well, drugs naturally.” 

She presses one of them and turns towards the monitor again to watch the chaos. 

“....Is she joking?” Graham whispers. 

“Nope.” There’s a hint of joy in Jack’s tone. 

* * *

  
  


She’s drugged him. 

_ Again.  _

Why was she so fond of drugs? These ones had been pumped in through the air, designed specifically to target time lord biology and induce a haze, that… Is what he figures out when he wakes up back on his bed, the force field wider and the bitch herself sitting in a chair on the other side of it. 

“Back so I can finish the job?” He asks, somehow not tripping over his words as he sits up. 

She’s ginger and no longer dark in colouring, but her eyebrows raise as she leans back in her chair, “Hardly, you got lucky and I know now that I can never, ever, bring you a good bottle of wine  _ again.”  _

“It was a waste.” He agrees, sitting up, something keeps tugging at the back of his mind, two lines blur together, the Cyberium is positively  _ roiling  _ in his mind and he meets the Rani’s new eyes, “What regeneration are you on?”

She crosses her legs instead of answering. 

“I’m surprised you aren’t stabbing me in retaliation or revenge right now.” The Master crosses his own legs, a mirror really, he can’t help that in this body, “But, knowing you there’s a very good reason why you aren’t… So, what do you need from me?”

The Rani shimmers and he realises that she’s a hologram, akin to that of the Bekdal Institute if he had to hazard a guess, “I was found by some interesting developments, they filled me in a little bit… But our dear sweet Doctor is still missing.” 

His focus is pulled forwards all at once and he watches her perch her arm on the back of her chair, hand coming to cradle her face, “The Doctor goes missing sometimes.” 

“Without her TARDIS?” Her eyes scan his face, waiting for a reaction and she gets it as he stands, marching towards the force field only stopping just before he hits it. 

He steps back a little bit out of confusion as the Rani watches him carefully, measured and refined like the mythic bitch she was. 

“What do you mean without her TARDIS?” 

“Her little pets showed up in it a few hours ago, thinking the TARDIS was taking them to her… Foolish-” Her attention is caught by something he can’t see, “-idiots.” She spits the last word with more annoyance than he thought possibly for her these days, “Frankly, your help is needed.” 

He cocks his head at her, waiting for her to elaborate. 

“You can connect telepathically to the Doctor no matter where she is, no matter where in time, what  _ universe  _ she could be contained in and whilst I have no idea how you can do that, I think it will be useful.” 

The Master stares at the Rani, who smiles like she knows some secret and suddenly there it is, that desperate need for knowledge, “What makes you so sure?” But even as he says it he can feel two hearts echoing in his own despite the distance. 

“You seem distracted, like you are when she doesn’t break the connection all the way.” Her pinky finger taps against the air, waving a bit as she thinks, “I remember how you’d get in class when that connection was still live and you two could feel everything the other was feeling…” 

Hollow loneliness echoes but it’s his own this time. 

A part of him sits there and longs for that connection, then he finds it, sat there curled and tied to his hearts in a big bow, it would be simple to cut it off, to leave it undone forever if he wanted to but- 

“Find her.” 

It’s not a question, it’s not asking, it’s short, curt and sharper than the Rani’s jaw… It’s the command of a Queen.

He meets her eyes, ready to defy but they have almost always been impossible, just like his, just like the Doctor’s. 

“I will, I always do.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into the Unknown... Into the Unknown.... Into the Unknownnnnnnnn. 
> 
> Dinner, Teasing and a lot of stupid decisions made by clever people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Beta, we die like Humans. 
> 
> Now ENJOY

The Rani stands from her chair, then she looks at the group in front of her, assembled humans and an immortal. 

“He’s going to help.” She says it softly, Yaz had heard it through the monitors but all that filled her was sharp disbelief, as she watched the woman walk around her console, phantom fingers still on her chin, “Told you all it wouldn’t take much convincing, if there’s one thing that’s certain in this universe it’s the Master’s need for the Doctor’s attention… No matter how he gets it.” 

There is a kind of heaviness to her movements, though she still floats through the room. 

A sadness that doesn’t seem made to be comprehended by anyone but The Rani. 

“Right, you are going to have to run me through every single one of your adventures with the Doctor, spare no details, nothing.” Her voice is soft but commanding, a woman presiding over a kingdom in a TARDIS console room, “Anyone you ran into, anyone who seemed ready to do the Doctor in… Bar the Master, he’s in my basement after all.” 

She looked at them all in turn, casually sizing them up.

“But first, we have to go and get an annoyance out of the Master’s head… And sadly, I’m not referring to his personality.” 

Her footsteps echoed as she left her TARDIS, they all followed her one by one. 

Yaz took one more look around her, the console room felt cozy but distant, like it had been built for someone who was lonely. 

The heat of the heath faded as it went out, Ryan stopped in the doorway and looked at her, “Coming?”

“Yeah.” She tore her eyes away and followed the others through the door. 

* * *

Jack eyed the Master with so much suspicion a chill leaked into the room and froze them all in time. 

“Please…” The Master spoke slowly, “Point a gun at me if it makes you feel better- Oh that was quick.” His eyes came trained on the small pistol that looked like it was out of a history museum relatively easily, before he motioned at the Rani, “You know Jack, I haven’t seen you in almost two thousand years? Next year on a Tuesday will mark that actually, always a tuesday.” 

The gun stayed firmly aimed at the Master, Yaz had to agree that was probably a wise decision, Ryan looked at the gun and then at the Master, before he spoke up himself, “The Doctor doesn’t like guns.” 

“Do you see her in here?” The Rani stated as she clapped her hands and spoke, “Millenia.” 

There’s a short buzz in the air as the force field dissipates and the Master doesn’t move, first reaching out a caution hand, as if expecting resistance, “Are you trusting me Rani?” The Master’s voice held a note of humour in it, the same kind that Yaz had heard on the plane all those months ago. 

“No, that boat sailed when you stabbed me.” 

“Good…” Still, the man made no move towards them as he took a step and then rolled his neck, a click echoed out and Yaz flinched, “My threat level has been well thought of this time…” His eyes swirl to the three humans and he clapped his hands together once, Yaz noted that this time around he looked a little more like a murder hobo. 

The Master looks them all over, “What did she call you? Her Fam, hello ‘Fam’.” 

“Hello…” Graham awkwardly says, before coughing, “Are we safe here?” He mutters. 

Two short strides and the Master stands in front of him, hands in pockets and leering terribly, well… As much as he could given that he was two inches shorter than the man. 

“Perfectly… Unless I want to kill you, in which case, not at all.” 

The sound of a gun’s safety being clicked off was heard across the room. 

“Play nice.” The Rani stated, appearing with cables and a machine that looked straight out of Star Trek, “We have a strange thing to get out of your brain.” 

She waved the cables around a bit, then pushed a chair forwards with her foot, “Not sure how I feel about the machine, Rani.” 

“Do you want to find the Doctor or not?”   
  
The Master paused, his lips pressing together, then he closed his eyes as if he’s deliberately taking a moment to think, but the Rani pushes the chair towards him again and the expression breaks away immediately, “Of course I do!” He snaps. 

Satisfied that he plonks himself down in the chair, she approaches again, caution on her face as the Master rolls his eyes and holds his hands up to his sides as if showing her that no harm would come. 

“The thrill of the idea of killing you has worn off and I need you.” The Master shrugs, hands still in the air, “I’ll be a perfect little angel, promise.” 

Dark eyes flick up to where Jack still has a gun on the Master, then back down to the man himself. 

She sticks the first wire to the left side of his head, then follows it up quickly with the other before she steps away, Yaz notices just the slightest of tremor shared between the both of them. 

Genuine fear, but for what?

“You three.” The Rani points at them, then at the door, “Wait outside, this could get ugly.”    
  
“Why not Jack?”

“He’s got the gun.” She stated as if they were all stupid, then she clapped her hands together twice, “Go.” She waved them towards the door and they still didn’t move. 

She sighed, almost dramatically in tone before she blew an imaginary piece of hair out of her face, returning her gaze to the Master, “How mad will the Doctor be if they die?”

“Speech giving levels.” 

“Oh lord, no…” The Rani looked horrified at the prospect of a speech, “Honestly, leave please, so I do not have to sit through one of her speeches- I  _ hate  _ her speeches, they’re always about hope or friendship or her being sentimental about the universe…” 

The Master glares at her, “She’s good at speeches.”   
  
“No, you just like hearing her talk.” Her eyes rolled and Yaz looked between the two of them, then at Ryan and Graham. 

Jack was the only one who didn’t look overly surprised at the way these two were speaking, “Can we get on with it please? Rani, you talked about getting the Cyberium out of him?” He got to the point as quick as he could and Yaz appreciated that. 

Even if he was still holding a gun. 

The Rani nodded once, pulling a pair of sunglasses out of her pocket and sliding them on, “Right yes- I’m gonna electroshock you.” 

“You are going to what no-” 

But she’d already flipped the switch. 

* * *

_ Everything is deadlock sealed- No, she’d done that already. _

_ Everything is silent- No, that brought back memories of large and tall beings who’d plotted to kill her over and over again.  _

_ Everything is… Is…  _

_ She’s run out of them all, the excuses and the lines… It was just her and her thoughts, her own head, her own… Feelings.  _

_ The Doctor had never been good at feelings, emotion was not her strong suit but given new information that really wasn’t much of a surprise, given she’d never had anyone who’d actually taken the time to teach her how to really feel-  _

“Theta, you should smile more- Mostly because it never looks like you know how to smile when you do smile and-” 

_ She presses the memory down, buries it really, she doesn’t want to think about him right now because if she lingers too much she will reach out and say the one sentence she is forever afraid of saying.  _

_ Because it’s a stupid question he hadn’t bothered to ask and probably wouldn’t- Something was niggling at the back of her head.  _

_   
_ _ She sits up from where she lies on the floor, a futile attempt to nap because she is still far too restless for it to really stick. _

_ It pulls at the back of her head and gets stronger, stronger and then-  _

_ The pulse shots through her like it is her own pain and her own feelings lie easily pushed aside because Kosche- No, The Master was in pain and she should cut the connection she should but-  _

_ Pulses like metal rods in a lightning storm and the Doctor…  _

_ The Doctor has a plan.  _

* * *

He feels the connection strengthen and then snap as he is torn apart by pulses of electricity that echo through him. 

There’s a sharp gasp that is echoed by someone else in the room- Right, the humans, who’d foolishly stayed. 

The Rani stands by the button, ready to turn it off, the electricity shining in the round red sunglasses with black wire frame perched on her nose, she always claimed she wasn’t dramatic but it came out in weird ways and- She turned a dial upwards and the pain rocketed through him more. 

He could feel it moving, protesting and roiling before- 

It shone in the air as the Rani turned her machine off and the pulses stopped, she reached a hand out before drawing it back, but the Cyberium followed the movement thanks to her own magnetism.

She stepped back whenever it got close and it followed her, “Fascinating.” Her voice held so much glee that it reminded him of their younger days as she took her sunglasses off and folded them shut again, “Oh, you are  _ beautiful,  _ an A.I? Built for the Cybermen to hold all of their history and future…” 

Fawning was the only word for what the Rani had started out on, walking around the Cyberium to watch it curl and it still followed her, but would not breach too far into her space, not close enough to attach itself forever- 

Something was keeping it from doing so, but what? 

He pulls himself up with a groan, surprised and a little disappointed that he has managed to escape death- and to a lesser extent regeneration -once again, but the Rani isn’t paying attention to him at all in this moment… 

It would be so easy to kill her and have the Doctor’s…  _ Fam,  _ watch him do it.

But he holds back on account of one fact, just one, she can help him find the Doctor- Not that she needs much help, but he has no TARDIS and is sure that the Rani has had his vortex manipulator burnt- She hates the things more than anyone he’s ever met.

The Rani keeps walking around, watching the Cyberium and it reflects in her eyes before she speaks again.

“It is a shame…” She whispers, before she pulls something from her pocket, a little box that she unleashes and it snaps the Cyberium up and into it, she holds the cube up to the light, a small mass flinging itself around in rage, “Such a shame, going to have to throw you into a sun at some point- You are far too powerful little thing.” 

The Master looks at the cube in her hands, “Are you really going to throw it into a sun?”

“What else would I do with it? As much fun as studying it would be, I simply don’t have the patience to deal with something that is so wholly obsessed with robots… No offense.” She states it as an afterthought, before she walks over to a wall and a hatch opens, “Have this put in my safe.” She speaks to a lab assistant on the other side of it as she slides the small cube towards them. 

She had definitely meant offense with her remark, but he purses his lips together instead of commenting and turns to the Fam, who looks at him with the widest of eyes, each with a touch more fear than before and the Master realises that the Rani is always fantastic at that expression in particular.

The aforementioned turns back to them all with a little spin on her heel and a flash of hair red enough to resemble… What was that one human film? Made at the start of the 21st century and then… 

“Hungry?” She asks the humans and Jack, who still has a gun trained on his back- That in itself is honestly also a little comforting, “Been a long night and I am  _ famished.”  _

She emphasises the word and the Master grins a little in the way that Graham in particular flinches.

The Rani, squashes the quick flash of delight on her own face. 

* * *

The food is predictably vegetarian in nature, the Rani and the Doctor had little in common but the vegetarian aspect was one they did in more recent centuries.

“Do you have any meat?” He asks her, as she settles in at her dining table, places set for all five of them, the Rani of course at the head, “Any at all.” 

Her eyes roll, “No, not in my household- Only the staff get to eat what they want, I am very strict with my guests... Is that a problem?” She directs the last of the sentence towards the humans, who just sit heavy in their chairs, “Going to take that as a ‘No’, please help yourself.”

Graham wastes little time, Yaz hesitates for a moment before she starts to serve herself the food that looks Earth-like in recipe and origin, “Is this baked mac and cheese?” The older man asks and the Rani nods softly, leaning back in her chair. 

“I may not spend much time on your planet, but it does have some things that interest me…” She nods at one of her gorians who stand at the ready nearby and they come forwards with a pitcher of something red in colour, but it’s not wine nor is it blood, something in between possibly, “Now, run me through recent adventures- Anything with the law possibly, the only people more able to capture and the trap Doctor dearest other then us has been the law.” 

The Master pulls the platter of cheese in his direction, “She does have quite the history of Tax Evasion.” 

“And Library fines.” 

“And Library fines.” He laughs, picking up a cracker, “She’s travelling with a cop too, silly little Doctor.” 

The Rani cracks a smile, “How foolish.” 

“Why do you keep talking about the Doc like she’s stupid?” Graham asks, spooning mash potatoes on his own plate, “The Doc’s a bloody genius.” 

The Master looked at the Rani before they grinned, “By  _ Human  _ standards maybe, but by ours… The Doctor is a Sentimental Fool who looks out for the good in anything and everything… Well, with clear exceptions of course.” She spoke matter of factly as she sipped her drink. 

“Like him?” Ryan nods towards the Master, his eyes studying them both with quiet suspicion and the Master is thankful at least one of them hasn’t sailed head first into wide eyed wonder, “The Daleks too and the Cybermen?”

He is rewarded with a genuine blink of surprise from the planet’s ruler at the head of the table, who’s smile widens, “Well, yes and no… The Doctor never really hates the Master, not a bone in her body that can do that, no matter what body they inhabit-” 

“Hang on.” The Master interrupts her, turning to face Ryan, “When did you meet the Daleks? The Doctor never mentioned the Daleks, even in her texts.”

Yaz speaks up first, “New Years, 2019?” 

“Yeah, it looked a little like something out of Cyberpunk 2077 though.” Ryan confirms, his shoulders easing a little bit but something in his sentence catches the Master’s attention. 

He sits up straighter himself, placing his elbows on the table, “What is a Cyberpunk 2077 and how do I meet one?”

The sound of the Rani’s head landing in her palm was audible. 

* * *

They run through the adventures, quickly enough and then they get to Gloucester and this… This is where things seem to interest the Rani and to a lesser extent the Master. 

“Judoon…” The Rani states it, curling the word on her tongue, “Well, if they picked her up there’s only really one place they could send her.” 

The Master has leant back in his chair at this point and Yaz can fully say he’s seen better days, a curling beard that’s grown out along with his hair that is just a mess at this point, missing sleeves and disheveled clothes… 

He looked like a hobo, a murder hobo. 

Yaz stared at him, narrowed eyes and skeptical look, “Where would that have been? If it was the Judoon.” 

“Well, there’s good and there’s bad news.” The Master speaks, his eyes flicking around the table, he seems dangerously stable now and Yaz wonders if he’s just waiting, “The bad news is that she’s in the one prison built to contain Timelords for all time, many people are locked up in there that would happily see any one of us dead…” 

She sits up straighter again, pushing her plate away, “And the good news?”

“I successfully broke out of it.” His grin is wide and full of pride, before a little piece of confusion is made present in his expression before Yaz blinks and it is gone, replaced with the same arrogance that graces the Rani’s face and more often than not, the Doctor’s.

The Rani rolls her eyes massively and tilts her glass back more to take a massive swig of whatever it is that she’s drinking- Yaz will not contemplate it being anything other than Wine or Ribena -before setting the empty cup down on the table again. 

“Which means we only need to confirm that she’s there, which is where the Master  _ actually  _ comes into play.” She perches her elbows on the table, linking her hands together and pursing her lips, “See, they have a telepathic connection- As you may have listened to me mentioned to him earlier -that they never really fully disconnect, they can pick it up like it’s a held call across the universe, even into other ones.” 

Ryan looks at them both, eyes scanning the room and Jack sits up, practically lounging in the chair he’s sat in, he querks an eyebrow, “So, what you're saying is that the Master can find the Doctor no matter where she is?”

She nods, a bounce of red wavy hair echoing the movement, her glass is refilled by the same alien, whom the Rani looks at and thanks with a smile, “There’s probably a good reason why and while I would love to study it and find out exactly why they’re connected like this- I cannot stand their presence long enough to do that.” 

“Nor can we stand yours.” The Master input with ease, an eye roll present, he leans back in his own chair and directs his gaze to Jack for a moment and Yaz wonders if he wants to stab the american before the Rani reaches forwards and removes the table and cheese knives from the Master’s reach, “We’ll have to boost the signal, I can sense the Doctor but she hardly ever picks up my calls.” 

There is bitterness in his expression now, “So, what?” Yaz speaks before she can really think about it, “You’re going to force her to pick up the phone?”

“More like leave it off the hook so that she’ll have to listen.” He replied, well, more snapped, causing everyone but the Rani and Jack to flinch a little bit at his sudden raise in volume, “The Doctor never listens, sometimes you have to trap her to get a word in edgewise.” 

The Rani picks her glass up and drinks some more, “Traps are your flirting, the only time you tell anyone the truth is when you flirt.” She takes another sip, eyes closing slightly and Yaz tears her eyes away from the moment, “Hence why I know you are almost certainly lying to me all the time.” 

Something passes between both Timelords as the Master narrows his own eyes at them all again, “I lie to everyone, unless I’m drunk.” 

“Ah yes, only honest people in the world…” 

“...Drunks and Children?” Graham offers and gains an eye roll from Ryan, “I watch real housewives sometimes, heard the quote a lot.” 

Yaz smiles at him herself, relaxing as little as she can in this room.

Jack coughs, “So, what exactly are we waiting for?” He leans forwards, arms on the table looking at them all seriously, gun put away for now, “Why aren’t we getting the Master set up to boost the signal and find the Doctor right now?”

The head of the table hums slightly, then downs the rest of her drink, “The Master has to take a shower first, he looks like a Murder Hobo.” 

“I still look better than you-”

“Why haven’t I stabbed you yet again-” 

Yaz watched them as bickering started and realised that what the Rani had said in her TARDIS was true, they really were acting like siblings. 

She thought about everything the Rani had told them, about the Doctor and the Master, their relationship and she swallowed, turning her head to look at Ryan who turned to look at her at the same time. 

‘You Okay?’ He mouthed and she nodded sharply, fast. 

It was easier to pretend she was okay, over acknowledging the wandering of her thoughts at this point. 

* * *

The TARDIS opened its doors without complaint as the Rani approached it with the Master at her side about an hour later. 

The Master stood in a freshly pressed suit, tailored to him and purple in colour, a double breasted waistcoat underneath it this time, though his trousers were black, they were still cuffed to show off a pair of bright purple socks in his shoes.

Yaz kept an eye on him out of worry, suspicion and concern, his hair curled around his face in little wet swirls that she watched him run a hand through and was reminded almost immediately of the Doctor. 

Begrudgingly, she would admit he cleaned up nicely. 

“The Doc used this machine on me a while ago, I think we could probably find it… If she’s not taken it apart again…” Graham jogs a bit to walk at the same pace as the two aliens, who acknowledge his presence, looking at him with a nod to continue, “It was this thing with godlike beings and nightmares- Anyway, she hooked the TARDIS up to my brain to see the visions I was being sent and used them to find where I was being directed to!” 

They all step into the TARDIS, which seems calm as much as a time machine can be as they circle things, the Rani stands straight and her eyes rake over everything, “Okay, Graham, you can take point on finding that machine you were talking about.” Her voice carries an authority that does not seem to contain an ounce of ‘Question me’ and Yaz wonders briefly if all time lords were built like that.

“What about us?” Ryan asks, walking up to stand next to the console, “What do we do?”

The Rani looks them over, “I’m going to give you and Yaz here a crash course in basic TARDIS flight, we need this to go as smoothly as possible, which means more than one pilot.” 

“We can’t all drive at once though?” 

She blinks, looking at the two of them and tilting her head, “A Type 40 TARDIS requires the minimum of Six Pilots to fly at maximum efficiency, Jack already knows how… Graham when he gets back will get some instructions as well.” 

“....Six pilots?” Ryan questioned, receiving a sharp nod, “That explains a lot, lowkey thought the Doctor was just a terrible driver.” 

“She is.” Jack, The Rani and the Master all spoke at once, obviously surprising each other at the same time, “The rattling drives us all crazy.” Jack continued, shaking his head, “I love the Doctor, doesn’t mean I want to be in a passenger seat when she’s driving.” 

Yaz felt the need to defend the Doctor rise, since she’d always been a fine driver when she’d ended up driving a car- Then remembered that the Doctor tended to avoid driving if she could help it. 

“Explains the shaking.” Ryan muttered, coming to stand next to the controls, “So, where are we starting? Can’t be that hard.” 

The Rani waved him over, “It takes us about fifty years to learn how to fly this thing properly- And I’m the only person you know who passed their test on the first try.”

“I got it on the third.” The Master muttered, rolling his eyes and staring at the controls, “You’ll still be flying it with five pilots, still biolocked out.” 

She rolled her own eyes, chucking a look at the three of them with a ‘like I didn’t know’ edge to it, “Of course, you’ll be wired in so the TARDIS can follow your signal, I’m pretty sure that is the closest this TARDIS will ever let you get to driving her.” 

Yaz looked at the Master, “Why were you Biolocked out?”

“There was a period of time where I was locked up on the TARDIS, wasn’t supposed to go anywhere- Neither was the Doctor supposed to leave me alone, her solution?” He waved his hands over the console, “Bio Locked out.” 

A look passes over his face, his eyebrows furrowing as he stares at the console. 

“I guess that answers my earlier question…” The Rani mutters, turning away from them and crossing her arms, not elaborating on it either as she moves around, “Ryan, I’m gonna talk you through the basics- It’s like riding a bike.” 

Ryan tenses, “I can’t really ride a bike.” 

“Well, that’s good…” The Rani smiled, good naturedly, “Neither can I really, always seemed a little silly.” 

Yaz watched Ryan’s back relax a bit, she pats his shoulder, “How many times did it take the Doctor to pass?”

“She didn’t.” The Master interjected, Yaz stared at him, he stared unshakingly back as if stating a challenge. 

The TARDIS made a noise as Graham returned, holding the device the Doctor had plugged him into all those days ago. 

He was greeted by the Rani moving towards him to take it.

She held her gaze steady on the Master, “Why are you helping us?” Yaz studies him this time, he cocks his head at her, “Last time we saw you, the Doctor was leaving to kill you and herself.” 

“Well, you clearly know it didn’t work.” His eyes rake over her, as if looking for a weakness and Yaz stands straighter, determined not to show an ounce of it, “And I’m helping because- I won’t repeat this and will deny it if you mention it to her -I care.” 

“But why- No,  _ how  _ do yer care?” She can feel her accent come out stronger with this question and watches him, then she becomes aware that everyone else is watching them too, “The Doctor was going to kill you- And you were trying to kill the Doctor.” 

The Master shrugs,  _ shrugs  _ at her, “We’re friends.” 

“ _ Were  _ friends.” She persists and watches him positively bristle this time, “The Doctor said you were her oldest friend, but that you went different ways.” 

Something, she cannot place what, changes in the way he holds himself, the way his eyes flash with anger, “We’re friends.” He repeats but it’s quieter, softer, snapping anger pushed down, he directs his gaze towards the console again, “We have been for thousands of years, you silly little apes couldn’t even begin to fathom-” 

“Try to explain it to us then!” Her voice rises and his eyes snap back to hers and he moves, stalks really from where he stands next to the console, she takes her own daring step forwards, “Why do you care about the Doctor- How much do you care about the Doctor, what does the Doctor mean to you-” 

He stands in front of her, “You want to see how much I care about the Doctor?”

The Rani steps towards them, “Master-” She warns but she’s too late.

“Let me show you-” 

Yaz feels fingers on her forehead and then- Oh there were so many- Her breathing shortened and quickened, her pulse beating out a tempo not unfamiliar but faster than anything else. 

A boy with dirty blonde hair rapidly smiles and ages before her eyes, warm eyes changing as the face starts to as well, she sees smiles and frowns, yelling and screaming- Oh, so much screaming, she feels her heart being torn apart and then drawn back together but not by her choice.

It creeps over her, the mixture of sadness, loneliness, the  _ longing  _ that churns up joy somehow, a fluttering in her chest as she sees smile after smile-  _ What would I be without you- Without hope - _ Everything twists and turns, melding and folding into the tiniest of sections. 

She is vaguely aware that she has started crying, they run down her cheeks without a thought of stopping and all she does is  _ feel.  _

The anger, the betrayal and then… The lighter emotions, the nostalgia and attachment, the memories that twirl in front of her, a sword fight, a laughing smile of a moment that left her a little breathless and… Forgiveness, endless and endless forgiveness and insecurity, of a want to be seen and she- 

The sensation and the fingers on her forehead are gone within the moment the Master is tackled to the ground, the Rani’s blazing her going past her vision as Yaz sways, everything feeling heavier, a stronger presence then before and it all feels wrong- 

She starts to fall, only to have warm hands catch her before she hits the floor, vaguely there is someone yelling in snapping anger, her vision is blurring and she’s still  _ crying  _ like she won’t stop, but she’s so tired of it at the same time… All she wants in this moment is her friend- 

But was that her feeling? 

Someone is saying her name, turning her face towards them with a gentle touch and it’s warm, pleasantly so- Ryan’s face looms above her creased in worry and his lips are moving but every single noise is just too far away for her to recognise. 

Her lips curl upwards and she lets her eyes close, heavy and Yaz accepts the blissful moment of quiet sleep. 

* * *

Everything moves and stills at once, Ryan catching Yaz as the Rani tackles the Master from behind.

“Yaz?” He cradles her, the Rani notes this as she keeps one knee on the Master’s back, arms pulled back, “Yaz-” Ryan’s voice is full of panic and she looks over at Jack, who’s already drawn his gun again. 

Graham dropped the machine the moment Yaz fell and she knows she’ll have to check it over before they use it, but he’s at his grandson’s side in a moment, they look over the stupid and utterly  _ human  _ girl. 

“You know what that would do.” She snaps at the man beneath her, “I cannot believe you would let yourself be goaded into such a thing-”

“SHE ASKED!” The Master snapped back, not even struggling, his face pressed sideways into the floor as he watched the humans fret over their friend, “She asked how much I cared, what the Doctor meant to me… So I showed her.” 

_ “Yaz-”  _ This time there’s a touch more panic, of heartbreak and she curses that she cannot ignore it, “Grandad what do we do-” 

“Her pulse, check her pulse, she’ll be okay Ryan-” The older human pushes, hand on shoulder as his free one moves down Yaz’s neck to find her pulse point, but the boy’s stupidly do not move, they just hold her like she will break if he stops.

The amount of care in their tones makes her hackles rise, “You know she won’t be happy about this-” 

“The Doctor will understand that it was her own pet’s stupidity that got her into this situation-” 

“No!” She makes sure her voice is firm, “That girl is barely into her twentieth year, you shouldn’t have risen to her game.” 

The Master’s eyes do not move from the humans, though something changes in them, a notion of understanding that pulses and she doesn’t like it- She never likes it when he looks like he’s worked something out. 

“She has a pulse, Ryan-” She watches, they both do as Graham takes Ryan’s hand and moves it to feel where the girl’s heart is still beating out a merry tune, “She’s okay.” 

Jack settles on his own knees next to the Rani and the Master, “I’ve got him, do what you need to do to find the Doctor.” He murmurs to her and she turns her gaze from the humans to the walking paradox, who puts his gun away and instead withdraws a pair of light cuffs. 

She declines to mention that the Master has escaped from those before as she takes them and settles them over his wrists, it will take him a moment and he won’t risk endangering his part in getting the Doctor out. 

The Rani stands, the Master stays in place, seemingly docile once again, looking at the humans with quiet and calm she does not trust, she thinks she sees guilt in his posture but that isn’t to be trusted either. 

Jack makes him stand pulling him back to the console as the Rani moves towards the machine Graham had dropped, it was okay, it would probably still work but the Master would have to be a guinea pig with it. 

Satisfied, she turns her attention to the humans, moving towards them, “She’ll be okay.” Is what she chooses to open with, she does not soften it and only Graham’s gaze moves towards her, she can see the rise and fall of Yaz’s chest, “She’ll need to sleep it off, humans aren’t supposed to feel thousands of years of emotion all at once.” 

“What did he do?” Ryan’s voice is quiet and his gaze still won’t move, she sighs sinking to a crouch in front of them all, she reaches forwards to touch Yaz but her hand is caught and finally she gets to meet his gaze. 

The wave of nostalgia is present, “He showed her what she wanted to know, he shouldn’t have, but what’s done is done… Her brain will need time to process it all, hence the nap, it will be a long one.” 

Humans are infuriating because they leave their emotions wide open on their faces, something she had installed in her not to do from the moment her eyes met the wide expanse of time. 

But, this child has never had that done and he is so worried. 

The Rani is terrible at emotion, it’s a rule, no one had taught her how to really deal with it but she can try as she shifts her grip and squeezes Ryan’s hand, “She’s okay.” She says it softer this time and he lets her hand go, gaze weary before it snaps down as Yaz sucks in a deep breath of air and shifts.

Tension leaves Ryan’s shoulders and she turns to look at Graham, who’s watching them both with wide eyes, he was tense as well but holding it together just enough… Grief hangs in his eyes and the Rani takes a deep breath. 

“I don’t, as a general rule, go prying around in heads, I dislike it when it’s done to me, so I don’t do it to others…” The Master coughs from where he’s been propped up against the wall, hands still behind his back, “You were being far too suicidal not to put to sleep, I didn’t go prying in your head anyway.” 

He sticks his tongue out at her, the wrong move as Ryan turns and glares hard at him. 

“I’m telling the Doctor about this.” His voice is cool, but human and the Rani suppresses a smile, far too reminded of her older friends once again, “Don’t think she’ll be happy with you at all.

The Master glares right back, “She’s never happy.” 

Ryan shifts, cradling Yaz more easily, “So says you.” The TARDIS makes a noise that the Rani pinpoints as agreement. 

“You don’t know her like I do.” 

She watches their gazes meet, but the conversation is finished and she stands, “Right, thanks to the Master we’re down a potential pilot, Jack, could you talk Graham through somethings? Ryan, feel free to take Yaz to her room, she’ll be fine, then you can come back here and I’ll talk you through the navigation system.” 

He hesitates before he slides his arms and picks Yaz up bridal style, “She’ll be okay?” His voice is quiet.

“She’ll be okay.” The Rani confirms. 

* * *

_ She blinks because emotion that is not hers roils somewhere across the universe- Or maybe even in another one.  _

_ The Doctor cannot work out which feeling is which, only that it is such a strong surge that it makes her hearts beat faster and her eyes wider- She knows the source and- Someone is drinking her brandy on the TARDIS.  _

_ Her eyes find the window, she keeps trying, connection after connection, memory after memory, she sits with her legs crossed and her back against the wall waiting and pulling.  _

_ She pulls at their connection, waiting for that spark of annoyance, for that moment of concern to come shining through and she wonders what’s keeping him so busy… He definitely had to have a TARDIS or as much as she hated them a vortex manipulator would do. _

_ That being said, someone is still drinking her brandy.  _

* * *

He pours himself a glass of brandy, then sighs and pulls a second glass from the cupboard to pour the Rani one as well. 

She glares at him, but takes it, never one to waste the chance to piss the Doctor off by drinking her brandy. 

“How did he get out of those handcuffs?” Graham asks from where he stands, momentarily having his attention pulled from learning the ropes, “Wasn’t he wearing handcuffs?”

The Rani rolls her eyes at him, moving around the console and looking at Ryan, “Navigation is simple enough, easy to focus on, easier to do.” She sips the drink in her hand, avoiding the questioning gaze of the walking paradox and a grandfather, “We start by looking at the star patterns, then at the time line here-” She points out where the lines fan out across the round screen to him. 

He doesn’t need to go over navigation himself, instead he watches her teach it whilst he pulls at the connection in his head. 

Ryan, holds himself tensely, not relaxing a single moment, probably still fussing in his head over Yaz, stupid little humans always wearing emotion on their faces, it was what made them so easy to control. 

“See this one here?” She points at a line in the middle of the rows and rows along the screen, “This is yours, Yaz’s and Graham’s, 2020, 21st century- 25th of February was the last time you were on Earth.” 

He watches them, ignoring Jack and Graham, approaching softly. 

The Master looked mournfully at his glass of brandy, before he sighed and placed it in Ryan's hand as he walked past, "You need this more than I do right now."

Ryan looked at him, furrowed his eyebrows, then looked down at the drink, then sniffed it, "Is there ginger in this?" 

"It's the Doctor's." The Rani stated plainly, tilting what was left in her own back, handing her empty glass off to the Master to be placed back in the wall safe, "Of course it has ginger in it." 

They watched the human, as he looked at the drink and then tilted it back, coughed once as she took the glass from him, "That's... That's the Doctor's?"

"Yep." The Rani seemed to make sure to pop the p, “Come on, that will help with your nerves a bit- Not as effectively with the Master and I of course, but back to navigation.” 

She keeps talking but the Master drowns her out and reaches out with his mind into oblivion and who knows where. 

* * *

_ She gasps, opening her eyes as she feels him.  _

_ Relief scratches through her at a breakneck pace and she wonders how much time has passed for him out there, but she can feel the Master pulling right back at her mind now.  _

_ He is not close enough for her to hear words, but she can feel things and what she feels from him is… Pity, anger- Oh he was always angry, that never stopped, but something else glimmered there.  _

_ Guilt.  _

_ “Get me out!” She barks out loud, but feeds it through the bond, hoping- No, praying to whatever intergalactic being was willing to take pity on her, that it would get through, “Shada Prison, come get me… Get me out…”  _

_ The Doctor forces it through, on repeat, she needs him, she needs him to come and get her she-  _

_ “I forgive you.” It’s a broken little whisper, even for her in the silence of the cell she’s sat in but it’s true.  _

* * *

_ “-ve you.”  _

For a moment he cannot breathe, it’s her voice, it has to be and it’s pushing through so he closes his eyes and focuses on it again, a little uncontrollable and he tried to bury the shaking that echoed over him. 

_ “-out, Sha-”  _

He lets himself revel in it for a moment, that he is the only person who can hear her right now, before he turns back to the console, tuning back into what the Rani is saying, it’s all basic knowledge the timeline weaves in and out.

“-isolate your timeline and the one you want to cross in to, then match it up to the star chart, oh you got it.” There’s a certain kind of surprise that echoes across her face as Ryan does what she says and then gets the next step easily, “Smart lad aren’t you?”

Ryan looks sheepish for a moment, “Well, bright and clever right? Can’t be shown up by all the old aliens in the room.” 

He surprises himself with his own snort, but even the Rani chuckles and her new face crinkles as she smiles, “Quite.” She replies and pats the boy on the shoulder.

The Master debates telling them that he can hear the Doctor, but then he watches Ryan pause. 

“If this is us-” He points at the lines on the screen, the one the Rani pointed out earlier, “Then isn’t this the Doctor?” His finger moves to the one currently sitting parallel to them, “But there’s a gap in it.” 

The Rani stops, turns on her heel and steps very carefully into the space beside Ryan, who takes a step away, “That’s… Impossible.”

“What’s impossible?” Jack asks from where he stands opposite them, “I mean, isn’t the Doctor always a little impossible-” 

She interrupts him, the Master latches on to it all and remembers what the Rani doesn’t know… What Jack doesn’t know… What… None of them know, save him.

“No, it’s just a few seconds but it’s like…” A wave of red moves as the Rani presses a few buttons, focusing in on what Ryan’s found, “It’s like she died, but time swept her up and saved her…” 

He surges forwards before he thinks too much about it, pushing both the Rani and Ryan aside as he hurries to turn the monitor off and blissfully the TARDIS lets him do so, before they dig too deep, before- The Rani catches his hand just as it blinks off and pulls him to face her.

“What was that?” 

“Nothing.” 

“No, that was not nothing- That’s an anomaly- Worse it’s a paradox, now explain to me why it looks like-”    
  
The Master turns to her, she’s still talking but he’s no longer listening, “I’m not telling you a thing.” He states it quietly and she raises up on her heels a little more, “Not until we have the Doctor back at least.” 

It is a long moment, before she frowns deeply, then turns to look at Ryan, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine…” Ryan’s looking at the Master again, it’s a look he knows well at this point and he accepts it with an eye roll. 

No one in this room trusts him. 

The Master doesn’t even trust himself. 

* * *

**Your humans are too clever**

_ This echoes through her head loud and clear, no emotion but she can hear it and her bones rattle with the relief as she stands up…  _

_ But then she registers what he said.  _

My companions are always clever, what are you doing within the same area as them?

**Oh, your TARDIS showed up with them and Jack in it… BEGGED for my help-**

That’s a lie. 

**Very astute.**

_ Things fall silent for a moment, it hadn’t sounded like a lie until he’d added begging for his help, she knows that her fam wouldn’t beg for anything- Nor would Jack for that matter.  _

Where are you?

**Coming to find you. I always do.**

_ She feels pressure well in her eyes and blinks it back, looking out her window and trying not to let everything roll through her all at once.  _

Shada, I’m in Shada. 

**See you soon.**

_ The Doctor sags as he goes quiet, she doesn’t like it when he’s quiet.  _

_ She hunted for the connection, to feel him and he was there, like a pull on a piece of thread hanging between them both in a long line.  _

_ So, the Doctor waited for her first friend to come find her.  _

* * *

There’s a cup of tea in her favourite mug sat on her bedside table, it steams slowly as if it was only just made and waiting for her. 

Her head is pounding, covers tucked up into her, and she takes a deep breath as she blinks her eyes. 

She’s in her room, but her bedside table gave that away and she wonders if the TARDIS has kept the tea warm for her as she sits up and takes it. 

Her memory is foggy, her head twinges as she moves and what she remembers mostly is her name being said over and over again in worry, her eyes sting like she’s been crying… 

Other than that all she can remember really is singing, like stars singing in tune with something deeper, older and- Her head twinges again and Yaz takes a big gulp of tea, she looks around her room in its slightly messy glory. 

Her jacket is thrown over the chair in the corner, her shoes tidy under it. 

She blinks twice, a whisper in her ears, “ _ Without hope-”  _ Her head shakes and the stars sing slightly more as she pushes the covers back and downs what’s left of her tea in one go. 

Her shoes are what she goes for next, there’s chatter coming down the hallway and through her door and it’s slowly coming back to her, her words- She’d been angry, because for all intents and purposes the Master shouldn’t have been there to her knowledge but now…

Gods, he was so angry, she’d never… It still simmers but she knows it isn’t hers and then there was the singing stars that sounded like  _ angels  _ were singing them- 

Her hands shake a little bit and her head hurts when she gets too close to those thoughts, but it was more shocking to find that they had something in common… The Doctor and how much they cared for her.

But, it wasn’t the same, no. 

Her care came in the form of a crush she hadn’t ever considered being reciprocated, her care was so… Young, when the Doctor really was ancient. 

She didn’t want to say the Master was right when he said that they couldn’t even begin to fathom it, but that was what it felt like. 

She pulls her boots on, one after the other then stands and sweeps her jacket on as she leaves her room, she sways a bit but catches herself on the wall, finding her way back to the console room with more ease then she’d ever had the TARDIS assist in before. 

The hallways don’t twist as she enters the room to see a small crowd around a chair, cables leak from the top of the helmet that the Master wears. 

“All hooked up, Ryan, if you want to go check on Yaz-” The Rani stops her sentence, spotting her on the stairs, “Ah, hello Yasmin, just in time, we’re about to leave.” 

Yaz blinks at them all, her eyes settling on the Master whose attention has snapped to her, “We’re going to find the Doctor?”

“Oh, we’ve found her, we just have to get her.” The Master winces as the Rani flicks his forehead and Yaz has the weirdest feeling it was done to remove his attention back on to the other timelord, “Ryan, you wanna show her what I showed you earlier?” 

She walks forwards towards them all, “Wait, but where is the Doctor?”

“Exactly where we thought she was.” The Master answers, sitting straighter, glaring at the Rani, “Shada Prison;” 

The way he says it is different from before, Yaz can feel it.

A hand settles on Yaz’s shoulder, small and soft, delicate, the Rani leans into her, “It will fade, you probably should have slept a little longer, focus on other things right now- Like the Doctor, we’re going to get the Doctor.” 

“The Doctor.” She tears her eyes away from the woman next to her, “We’re going to get the Doctor home.” 

Her eyes look over the rest of the group, before they land on Ryan who’s looking at her with worry and concern, but clearly more relieved to see her then she’d ever thought possible. 

“Well… I don’t know if the Doctor says it anymore…” Jack begins, hand hovering over the lever, “But…  _ Allonsy!”  _

_ “Allonsy!”  _ The two timelords echoed with him, as the TARDIS shook with a lurch. 

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally a Rescue- Or... Something else?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide  
> TW: Child Abuse

_ Within the bubble universe in which Shada Prison resided, time was a luxury barely anyone could afford, the only guards who worked there were those who did not have families to return to, the people that the universe would not miss too much.  _

_ They dedicated their whole lives to the upkeep of the Prison, keeping it running and it never stalls, not for a single moment of time, constant surveillance that picked up even the slightest of changes in light.  _

_ Built from stone and steel, floating in an asteroid in an otherwise barren little bubble universe, created by the Timelords, to hold Timelords and not much else, though given the species it was originally designed for it could be argued that the prison was capable of holding anything.  _

_ Not many had managed to escape from its walls, but those who did were buried under piles and piles of paperwork, covered up and put to rest.  _

_ Benedict had no family of his own left out there in the wider universe, no one could tell how much time passed out there from in here, all anyone really knew about was that some planets had up and disappeared now and again.  _

_ One of which was Gallifrey, home of the very species this prison was built to keep.  _

_ He was not a Timelord, but he’d grown up on stories on a race that explored all of time and space, who stood in their glittering towers of gold but stood on terrible secrets that no one dares touch less they kill you for it.  _

_ As he walks past the cryopods, he cannot help but think about what these timelords must have done to warrant life sentences kept in a world frozen forever.  _

_ Then he thinks about the timelord who is not frozen forever.  _

_ She rests in a small cell at the end of a long hallway, there’s nothing near her and they aren’t allowed to get close enough to her when she is conscious, it is a planned out procedure by the Shadow Proclamation, an endless game of keep away for they all fear her.  _

_ Which he often finds strange, how could one timelord instill so much fear in everyone around him, she didn’t look very special after all, small and blonde. She babbles to herself constantly, hardly ever seeming to be quiet so it was worrying when she was.  _

_ No one would tell him her name, as if speaking it would insight a revolution.  _

_ Still, she proved for an interesting part of an otherwise rather dull existence.  _

_ Though, sometimes he wondered about the singing that curled through his ears when he walked near enough to the hallway that led to her cell.  _

_ It sounded like angels, like the new fixtures that hid their faces like children nearby that must have been installed recently which was strange because he couldn’t remember the last time anyone responsible for the maintenance of the stone and steel did anything to make it all look pleasantly and they were out of place for a prison… _

_ Still, Benedict paid them no mind and moved on with his day, blinking as he turned away from the hallway, the singing still haunting him as he went.  _

_ Like singing stars if he were going to call it anything.  _

_ It happens near the end of his shift, when he’ll be relieved to go and sleep, to eat and take a long break before coming back tomorrow again.  _

_ He is walking along the hallways, whistling and the singing follows him as he goes, soft but rising and then-  _

_ Then he is somewhere else, where water falls on his face and his uniform begins to feel soaked through, there’s something off about the air around him, the blow back against his face and blonde hair. _

_ But it is the fact that things feel like they are moving all around him that gets him worried, that makes him spin in place and see rows of houses instead of cryopods. _

_ It didn’t make sense... _

_ All he had felt was a small soft touch on his shoulder.  _

* * *

There are things that get thought out and then there are the things that no one considers until it is far too late to think about at all. 

In the present time, it is the sound of the TARDIS landing at what is hopefully their chosen location- Not that she doesn’t trust her new trainee pilots but even the most experienced could make one wrong move and end up in a volcano about to erupt or next to a black hole that would cremate them all to cosmic dust once again. 

She turns to face the doors first, tilting her head before the TARDIS makes a beeping noise and pulls her attention to a large screen being projected onto the wall, “That’s handy, you really do surprise everyone don’t you?”

“Are we here?” Yaz asks to her right, stepping forwards towards the doors before someone pushes past her now sans helmet and cables, “Oi-” 

The Master stands in front of the doors, reaching out to open them, “I can feel her, she’s out there-”    
  
“So is an entire prison security system.” The Rani points out dryly, watching him stop mid step, logic firmly coming back into play. 

His eyes stay planted on the door, shoulders and back straighter than ever before, “I’ve been here before, I can get her in and out, you don’t have to come-” 

“Not so fast.” She retorts, standing up straight, watching the screen instead of him, “There’s something here I fully intend to steal, two birds with one stone.” 

This caught his attention and he slowly turned from the door, one track focus shifting slightly, “What are you going to steal?” 

She felt not just his eyes on her now, “Like I’m going to tell you.” 

The Master stares at her, then turns back to the doors, “I’m going to find the Doctor, I would prefer no one come with me-

Yaz and Ryan are out the door ahead of him in seconds.

* * *

There is a distinct thing that Graham understands after being in the presence of three different timelords at different times. 

He doesn’t trust two of them, even if one did feed him, but it’s a common thing that he can’t help but wonder about. 

The timelords he’s met wear their grief like coats, it stays there and he wonders if even they know about it. 

All a little different, but all the same in time. 

The Doctor carries hers with her, it’s in her eyes and weighing on her shoulders, in her smiles when she thinks she’s hiding it. 

The Master’s seems to come through with anger and disappointment, no idea how to mourn and it sits on him. 

The Rani’s… Is softer, easy to miss but it’s there and it screams to people who she doesn’t know well enough to hide it from. 

Yaz had asked why the Master cared- And Graham was going to punch that man if he ever raised a hand against her again -but it was obvious in hindsight, especially with what the Rani had told them in her own TARDIS. 

There is care in their movements and their words, even if you can miss it at a blink. 

There’s care in the way the Rani stares at the Master, Ryan and Yaz with tired eyes that roll as she pushes herself off of the console, making to go after them before she pauses and turns to look at him and Jack, “You two are welcome to stay, but I feel like your good at talking.” 

Graham smiles, “I’m terrible at talking, botch my way through conversations.” 

“Somehow I don’t believe that.” Her smile is brief, but not thin as her lips quirk about as if she doesn’t quite have control of her own face just yet, “If we stay they’re going to get into trouble, I can just feel it.” 

Jack shakes his head, “The Master probably will, but for everything I’ve seen of them Ryan and Yaz know how to handle themselves way better than anyone else in the room ever does.” 

“He’s only saying that because Ryan’s his favourite.” 

“He’s mouthy, knows just what to say to make a guy smile.” Jack stalks around the console and the Rani looks up at him, shorter than he thinks she’d like to be, “So, Shada? I always thought someone would try to lock me up here and then they never did.” 

She nods, “Knowing the Shadow Proclamation we’re about to see a lot of Judoon.” Her heels click as she walks to the door, then follow her, “The TARDIS will lock up behind us.” 

“So…” Jack leans a little closer to her, “Whatcha gonna steal?”

Graham looks at him as he shuts the TARDIS doors behind them, sleek steel surrounds them in a semi deserted hallway, Ryan, Yaz and the Master already stand at the end of it, ducking back around the corner a moment later. 

The Rani is also looking at Jack, “You’ll see when I get it, but it will require us splitting up, you guys getting the Doctor out will…” She trails off, “It’s quiet.” 

“Is it not supposed to be?”

“Not really-” 

Then Graham heard the singing, quiet and sweet, “It’s not that quiet, someone’s singing.” 

Attention snaps to him, curious in nature and it makes him feel a little like he’s back in an office, “Singing?” The Rani’s tone is soft, interested as she tilts her head and an earring catches the light as her hair shifts and her eyes close, waiting, listening, “...You must have better hearing than I do.” 

“...You can’t hear it?” Graham questions, as she starts walking and he follows her, Jack following him, “It’s soft, slow, kind of sad really.” 

The Rani shakes her head slowly, then pauses, “Weird, fascinating… But strange.” Her voice carries and it draws Ryan’s attention back to them, the Yaz’s as his grandson places a hand on the woman’s shoulder, “We’ll investigate that later I suppose.” 

Her eyes reflect the artificial lighting, making them appear less dark, her brows pinch in the middle ever so slightly.

“So, what were you saying about splitting up?”

“Hm?” She shakes her head, as if breaking out of something, “Right, yes, I’m going to go find the main control room- The Master has a lock on the Doctor already given the telepathic connection so we don’t need to find a map, but you will all need a way to unlock the door.” 

The Master’s eyes land on her and his glare is adamant, a universal look that Graham knows is “I hate it when you're right” having been on the receiving end of it many times in his life. 

They really were like siblings. 

“Why go alone?”   
  
“I won’t be noticed, plus I could use some peace and quiet.”   
  
They look at each other, then back to her.

“You can’t go alone.” Yaz is the one who speaks up finally, “You should at least take one of us with you.” 

The Rani looks at her, tilting her head, “I’m flattered for your concern, Yasmin, but I’ll be alright on my own, besides you should have as much help as you can manage, unless you want to come with me yourself?”

Yaz falters, then looks over her shoulder at the hallway beyond, eyebrows creasing, “I want to find the Doctor.” 

“Of course you do.” The Rani’s tone is softer than anything, almost caring, before she turns to look at the Master and her body language changes, “I’m just not leaving you alone without anyone behind you with  _ him.”  _

A sentiment shared by everyone it seemed, “I’ll take Ryan.” Yaz’s voice is sure, as she reaches behind her and takes Ryan’s hand, “And Graham… Which leaves... Jack?”

“I think the Rani will be okay by herself, Yaz.” Jack receives a look from the aforementioned, who takes steps away from him, “We’re all going to get the Doctor out.” 

Yaz looks over the group again, he watches her squeeze his grandson’s hand and then lets go, “Good luck.” She says to the Rani, who slips past them all with a soft pat to both Ryan’s and Yaz’s shoulders. 

“Luck isn’t scientifically sound.” Then the timelord is gone. 

The singing continues.

* * *

_ Benedict was late.  _

_ That never happened, Valerie was constantly surprised with how on time he was, he could manage it better than most within Shada’s walls.  _

_ Which was what made it strange when his clock off time came and went, still, not one to annoy her bosses she went on her rounds herself, keeping an eye out for the man so she could send him back to his quarters for a long kip.  _

_ Her footsteps echo, she’s not the only person on duty now but she has to admit that Shada is creepy at this time of the night cycle, all of the frozen faces around her.  _

_ Not to mention the singing that doesn’t seem to have an origin nearby to her, it may have been a system malfunction but it didn’t feel like that… And it would be a strange one to happen indeed.  _

_ Up ahead she thinks she sees a flash of red hair and a long grey and red coat, but when she goes to follow it she feels a lightest touch on the back of her head and she turns to find it.  _

_ Water hits her face as she spins in the middle of the large green field, singing no more but her torch shining over the night.  _

_ Now, she understands what must have happened to Benedict.  _

* * *

She makes sure not to make a sound as she goes, it was something she’d mastered thousands of years ago when she was only about a hundred and wearing heels for just a little advantage in her job when she’d been a Prison Governor before she’d been forced into exile. 

Not that that hadn’t been for the better in the end. 

Cryopods line the walls around her, monitors beeping with pulses, alive but frozen… She wondered who exactly was in here with the rest of the timelords, she wondered if she knew any of them. 

She hazards a guess at turning points, pressing herself into hiding when a guard walks nearby, but never stopping long enough to risk being caught out by one of them. 

Her own list of crimes was small enough, she’d always made an effort to wipe records of certain things here and there, one of which had been Mishima Goria in general making it appear as if it had always been free and she’d never set foot there long enough for them to turn on her. 

A failed end of means that made her change her methods and her plans, whilst also refining her personal ideals within her. 

The idea of singing still plays on her mind as she goes, leaving only behind a quick glance before she finds it. 

The hidden room that houses Shada’s  _ Matrix.  _

“Finally, answers.” She mutters to no one but herself as she pushes in the door. 

  
  
  


The song is something from their childhood. 

It sounds like he did when they were boys out in the fields, the singing, soft and sweet and calling to him. 

He wonders if she knows that she’s broadcasting her thoughts to most of the universe, trying to reach someone, not just him- She would look for anyone to save her, he just came running first with a pack of her humans and her walking paradox behind him. 

The humans gawk at the cryopods, at the aliens within them, he can pick out the timelords within them like they were sontarans in full uniform in a crowd of humans. 

Monitors beep, he’s so tempted to turn off the life support on the timelords, but remembers he has witnesses. 

“Is the Doctor in one of these?”

“Hopefully not.” He answers the question and doesn’t even register which human pet has said it- That was a lie, it was Yaz, she always seemed to ask the questions… He ignores the twinge in his chest at the image of her unconscious at his hand on the floor, “No, definitely not, wouldn’t get as strong of a telepathic signal if she was.” 

His feet don’t echo as he watches their surroundings for even one sign of a guard, but there should have been at least one by now if his head was being kind in his ability to remember. 

None came and it was still far too quiet, Shada mostly ran on orphans from families too small and powerless to remember, those so desperate for money that they gave up whole lives to come and guard here. 

The humans behind him mutter to each other now and then, as he closes his eyes and almost loses himself in the singing around him. 

It’s different from the drums, but he knows what it is, what the song is, what it has always been. 

Finally, he turns a corner and finds himself staring down the barrel of a hallway made of pure stone, lights running down the length of it leading towards a singular wall, or well, a door built to look like a wall. 

“We’re here.” He tells the humans, feelings a presence push up against his mind, so close but so far at the same time, willing, wanting, missing and waiting- “She’s behind that door.” 

Yaz pushes past him and he catches her arm, “What? Aren’t we going to get her-”   
  
“Don’t be stupid girl.” He makes sure it is particularly scathing in tone, but surprisingly Yaz doesn’t look scared or even flinch, nor does she look angry and mentally he curses that he may have broken this human… “Just because it looks like there’s nothing there, that doesn’t mean that-”

His hand is removed by way of Jack, who pulls Yaz towards him and the other two easily enough, “Don’t.” He warns, “Touch Yaz again.” 

The Master’s eyes roll, “So worried for the lives of mortals, honestly, you know it hurts when they die- But you move on, I hear you did-” 

“Don’t.” Jack warns again and he watches the ‘Fam’ look between the two of them, “I’ll go on ahead, the Master’s coming with me.” 

He rolls his eyes again, adding in the indignance with as much flare as he can, “More like your coming with me- Honestly.” He takes a step forward and feels the shift. 

The singing grows louder and there’s a short cry from the oldest of the humans, whose hand goes to his head and the Master briefly recalls that the man had said he could hear it.

Everything shifts, then the Master looks at the room, feels eyes that are unseen and utters a single word that ignites a response immediately, well trained into the humans and Jack at this point. 

“Run.” 

* * *

Something slams into the other side of the door of her cell, admittedly she jumps a bit as she hears vicious swearing. 

Then she feels  _ him  _ and relief floods through her, as the swearing continues and she walks forwards to where she now knows the door  _ has  _ to be. 

“Master?” She calls and hears the swearing stop and the relief that floods through her own mind, that isn’t hers this time as the muttering continues and then she hears… Other voices, he’s not alone, “I thought you’d be alone!” Her voice is barely above a hissed whisper. 

There’s scratching and more swearing, before she sees the force field fizzle out and she takes out her sonic, points and- 

A click sounds as the door opens. 

She barely has time to say a word before he practically runs towards her and picks her up swift and fast, spinning her around as he barks at whoever is with him to shut the door again- 

“Why-” The Doctor asks, as he stops spinning and sets her down again, as she hears the click of a gun being pointed at the door and- 

Her mind is enveloped in a cloud of him, close and there- Every point of contact that lies between them lights up and she looks at his face, aware that other people are there but- 

“Master.” She whispers it, his eyes snap to her, taking her in and his grip tightens, she wonders why it does, when he claims to hate her, she wonders why she lets him pull her closer into a hug, knowing that this body is not a fan of physical touch. 

Eyes are watching them, familiar but her mind buzzes, filled with emotions stronger than anything and she can’t really help it when she leans up that one inch and kisses him softly, sweetly on his cheek then pulls away again, to press her forehead against his.

“Doc?”

“Yes, Graham- GRAHAM?” Her eyes tear themselves away from the Master and she feels his annoyance immediately as she takes them all in, “Yaz? Ryan- JACK?”

Jack looks at her, “.....Doctor, I knew there was something going on when I watched you cradle his body but… Really? You’ll kiss him? But not me?”

There’s a bit of a joke in his tone and she smiles, despite the situation, despite the fact that she realises sharply that she has absolutely  _ No idea  _ what is going on, “He’s a better kisser?”

“Okay, now that I just don’t believe-”   
  
“Sorry to interrupt-” Yaz speaks up, “-but what the  _ actual fuck?” _

Everything falls into silence and she pushes the Master’s arms away from her waist, softly, remembering sharply that she’s supposed to be angry at him- And she is, but her focus is shifting. 

“What were you running from?” She ignores Yaz’s question for now, it wasn’t important, “Open the door-”

Graham slumps against the wall, “That’s not a good idea-” 

“Why not?”   
  
“Can no one else hear the bloody singing?!” Graham almost yells, hands on his head. 

The Doctor stands up taller, “What singing?”

“I thought it was you.” The Master states it and her attention snaps back to him, “I thought the singing was  _ you  _ but it isn’t is it? It only feels like you.” 

She doesn’t know what he’s talking about, “What are they doing here?” Her hand comes up and she gestures at the fam with her sonic, “No,  _ how  _ are they here?”   
  
“Package deal, the TARDIS brought them and Jack to find  _ me.”  _ He leans in closer to her then, looking her in the eyes.

She leans in too, unconsciously mirroring him again, “Well, why didn’t you leave them behind-”    
  
“Doctor, they’ve travelled with  _ you  _ and it may have escaped your notice but anyone who ends up travelling with you either ends up dead or stubborn as hell-” He doesn’t finish because she closes the gap and shuts him up, pushing a much more stubborn kiss at him this time aiming for his lips, hands tugging at his labels and she is in fact so utterly angry.

She moves her hands and he lets her, not letting go of the contact for a single moment as they both place a hand to the back of one another’s necks and she sighs a little bit when he pushes back against her a little harder. 

He pulls away, blinks and then- “I’m an idiot.” 

“Stealing my lines now?” Her whole body tingles and she wonders how long it’s been since she’s kissed someone- Certainly the first time in this body, her anger simmers alongside his but that’s what it does, there would be time for talking later and she already felt herself, she had already forgiven him. 

The Master swoops forwards and presses another kiss to her nose, “No, no no, I’m genuinely stupid- Though you are an idiot-”   
  
“Always.” She mutters, settling herself and trying to calm the little flutters her hearts give off… Then the panic as she realises that she’s going to have to answer a lot of questions. 

His hands leave her and he steps away, “The Rani, the Rani is going to steal Shada’s Matrix.” 

“What?” 

But Yaz speaks up again, “Sorry, again, so many questions- But how is she going to steal a Matrix?”   
  
“Shada has its own Matrix, it updates periodically and I forgot about it, it houses all of the information of the great houses…” He turns back towards the door, “I wouldn’t tell her anything about you… 

She moves towards him, leaning and her hand moves of its own accord to take his own, she ignores the looks, the confusion, “How is the Rani even here-”   
  
“She was there when the TARDIS took us to find him.” Ryan speaks up this time, eyes wide and suspicious, unmoving off of her and she curses it slightly because looking on it, he really is the most like her, “He stabbed her, then she regenerated, then she told us you two were  _ Married  _ and had  _ Children  _ and then she got the cyberium out of him, then she fed us, then got him to change then when we were on the TARDIS he and Yaz got into an argument and he did something to her head-” 

The Doctor lets go of his hand again, “Sorry, what exactly did the Rani tell you- You did what to Yaz- Master-”    
  
“She started it!”   
  
“That’s not a good reason!” She turns to Yaz now, “Are you alright?”

“Um-” 

She’s about to open her mouth, either to ask again if Yaz is okay or to continue yelling at the Master when it clicks all over again, “You lot were running, what were you running from?”

Jack looks at the door, “There was something watching us out there, felt like… Time.” 

“Time is locked here, of course it feels like time-” The Master begins again, before pausing, “It does feel more than a little off, it happened when we got near  _ you.”  _

Ryan turned towards the door, “What if… We opened the door and had a look?”

“Ryan, that’s not really a good idea..” Yaz muttered, looking at him wide eyed and the Doctor felt herself flatten a bit because she was going to suggest the exact same thing, the Master opened his mouth, “We don’t know what’s out there yet, we don’t even really have anything to defend ourselves with either.” 

The Master’s mouth closed, his gaze cutting away from her fam and the Doctor felt a little vindication in that, “We should open it.” She finds herself saying, then finds herself on the end of the Master’s ‘ _ Are you kidding me’  _ look, before it’s joined by three more. 

Yaz’s eyes are wider, “Then I guess we open the door-”    
  
“Why is it a bad idea when I suggest it, but a good one when the Doctor does-”    
  
“Because your you and the Doctor’s the Doctor-”    
  
“CHILDREN!” The Master yells and she’s the only one that doesn’t flinch, “Move, we’re going to open the door, despite the fact that it is, in fact a terrible idea.” 

He cuts through them, she watches as Ryan grabs Yaz and pulls her out of the Master’s path without any hesitation, she knows why, it’s a good idea, before he and Jack manage to get the door open and she pushes her way to stand in between them. 

“What is that?” Jack asks, looking at the figure standing at the end of the hallway, eyes covered like a child in hiding, wings spread out just enough. 

The Doctor hasn’t seen them in so long, hasn’t noticed them around her at all, “It’s an angel, a weeping angel.”    
  
“That sounds bad…” Graham mutters quietly, hand still on his head as he peeks over her shoulder, followed quickly by Ryan and Yaz, “Doc, how bad are we talking here?”   
  
Her hearts pound as she stares at it, she’d forgotten what they’d looked like almost, so long without seeing one and there’s red hair in her memory, a goodbye stated before the red hair was collected up into nothing but air. 

She is usually never without an idea of what to say, but all she can think of this time, out of everything to say is one simple sentence. 

_ “Don’t blink.”  _

* * *

She has questions, so many and she will ask them before she removes the pretty little Matrix from it’s pretty little room, it would be easy enough. 

The Rani extends a hand towards the softly glowing orb in the center of the chamber, touching a hand to it and closing her eyes, opening her mind properly for the first time in centuries. 

She is first presented with her own timeline, all the little pieces of information it could give her, her looming, the day she met the worst things that could ever happen to her, her TARDIS flight test when she was eighty-eight…. Finding out her friends were dead, or her friends had left or her ninety-fourth birthday that had been barren.

“Please, stop being depressing.” She states this and the images change, curling through whatever it can reach, “Why was the Doctor arrested?” 

Nothing happened, she huffed, pulling her hand away and dismantling the link to walk around the room in a slow pacing circle. 

She knew she wouldn’t have much time in here, the Master would undoubtedly work out what she was here for and drag the Doctor and her humans along with him to stop her from seeing what he clearly didn’t want her to know… 

“You know I’ve never really been a fan of you or your friends.” She states this, extending a hand towards it again, before drawing it back, “A matrix that houses all the information of the timelords, every memory, every inconsistency, existing outside of time itself and coming up with prophecies that only work out one in a hundred times.” 

Her gaze travels to the roof of the room and she groans, “I’m talking to myself again, that’s not a good sign, I know I’m intelligent conversation but being around the Master for five minutes has got me doing this again- Bastard.” 

“You know, less than twenty four hours ago I had a completely different face?” Her voice meets open air and things older than her by thousands of years, “Then I get stabbed by one of my oldest friends in the universe? Then I am roped into breaking another of said friends out of prison with their little pets?” 

Nothing replies, so she crouches down, “I have to disable the fail safe on you too, sorry about that, but I can’t go forgetting what I find.” 

Her fingers find the panels easily enough, she pulls the knife out of her boot and prys up the edges carefully to meet the surface and expanse of wires and living electrics, little sparks running around. 

It’s running, she can feel it breathing life into the time around her. 

All it needs is a little bit of coaxing out of its shell, she wonders how long it’s been since it’s been used  _ properly.  _

She feels a spark in her head, a warning but she pushes forwards and turns it off, the fail safe, the thing that will let her see whatever she wants without losing it again. 

“Okay, let’s start again… But this time, you will listen to me and do exactly what I want.” 

Her mind links with this matrix and she pushes. 

First herself, stood in the citadel as she remembered it. 

Then, the image of the gap in the Doctor’s timeline. 

“Show me what I want to know.” 

And so… The Matrix does. 

* * *

Her hearts have stopped, no, that’s not true if they had she would be dead on the floor.

She knows she’s seen the Weeping Angels since Manhattan, she  _ knows  _ but all that comes to the forefront of her mind is the times she’s gotten people killed because of the creature that stood at the end of the hallway. 

“It can’t move if you can see it.” She states it, factual, she had to be factual and she had to plan because the angel was… Blocking their way out. 

She needed a plan and she needed it now- Oh it would be so much easier if it was just her and the Master, so much easier. 

“Doctor?” Yaz’s voice is behind her, soft and sweet, so utterly human, so utterly  _ killable,  _ “What do we do?”

She didn’t know. 

The Doctor looked at the angel in front of them, wondered if this was the only one, wondered if there were more lingering out there in the dark, waiting, watching for a singular weakness.

But why wait? They could just attack now and take them for all they were worth. 

There were no flickering lights this time, the angel let itself be seen by them all, as if it was putting on a show, like it wanted attention, hiding its face like a child. 

“What if we smashed it?” Jack asked quietly, then the light did flicker, ever so slightly, a warning, his lips sealed shut and his eyes widened, “What if we blinked in turns?”

That could work… 

“We can’t touch it, if we touch it, they’ll…” What would they do? What could they do, to her, to her fam to Jack or the Master? “They displace people in time to create a paradox and feed off of the energy that results.” 

She can feel their tension, their edges of fear but there’s no panic yet. 

She needed a plan, so she took a step towards the angel, never removing her eyes for a single second. 

A hand rests on her arm in the next moment, it’s warm and present, she’s still angry at him but knows he probably won’t let anything happen to her at someone else’s hand, “Do you have a plan?”   
  
“One’s forming.” 

“Forming or close to forming?”   
  
“ _ Forming.”  _ She hisses at him through gritted teeth, she doesn’t need to see him to know he grins like a maniac, she can just  _ feel  _ it and gods she hates him, “We’ll have to try and move round it, unless you lot want to dry and pry the window off?”

Yaz is the one that turns to look at the window, “Plan B?” She offers, not sounding very convinced.

“Plan C?” Ryan offers in the next moment, not sounding confident either, “How are we gonna move past it?”

The Doctor knew it was a bad idea, as she took another step forwards towards it, forcing the Master to follow her. 

“We’re not all small.” Jack submitted, normally it would earn him a stern look but she wasn’t looking away from the angel for a single  _ moment.  _

_ What do you need? _

It’s almost shocking because he’s right there next to her, hand on her arm still, fingers warm and firm and she wonders why she hasn’t moved them like she would anyone else’s yet- That’s a lie, she knows, she just won’t tell. 

She slowly inclines her head towards the angel, his gaze snaps from her to the angel as she takes a very calculated turn to face her companions, “Shut the door.” She tells them. 

“Doctor-”    
  
“Shut the door and I won’t tell you off for drinking my brandy.” 

She was met with silence.

_ I handed the boy the drink.  _ The Master whispers into her mind and she rolls her eyes, of course he did,  _ You lace it with ginger… _

“Shut the door.” She repeats and looks them each in the face, “I’ll be right back.” 

The Master speaks up outloud finally, “She really will.” An echo to what he’d said to Ryan at the boundary.

Slowly, Yaz meets her eyes, then slides her gaze to the Master, before she reaches back and takes Ryan and Graham by the hand. 

The Doctor wonders what the Master showed her. 

Jack meets her eyes last, nods and closes the door. 

“So, this plan of yours?” The Master speaks slowly, it is not quite a whisper, “What is it based in?”

She ignores him, using the fact that he is standing staring at the angel to duck very carefully under it’s side, out into the wider area, then she points her sonic at the lights, before she looks to him and says. 

“Gambling.” 

The lights go out. 

* * *

_ She feels it before she sees it.  _

_ Even in the Matrix, even diluted it still makes her spine crawl upwards into her head, makes her want to scream and cry like she is eight years old in the middle of a field again, standing in silence and being told to look.  _

_ She remembers that it is beautiful.  _

_ She remembers that it  _ hurts. 

_ The Rani is frozen for a moment, it is not her fault- No, it is fully in the hands of the thing behind her, looking upon her back as she watches something else happen before her on repeat.  _

_ A boy, barely in his nineties by looks alone runs past her, golden brown skin being caught in the torchlight as he goes.  _

_ She will not turn around yet, she cannot turn around yet, not when she is struggling to keep herself from falling apart in the presence of a power so much greater than her own- And there were not many things she would label as so.  _

_ Instead she studies the boy, studies the way he’s breathing like he’s in danger, like he’s escaped from something, she studies his face, unfamiliar and yet… Like one she’d always known.  _

_ She hears the voices speaking in the distance, “Find the Foundling”, “Find me my child”, “Do not let him go you foolish cretins!”, each is more threatening than the last and it plays in a loop.  _

_ The boy may look to be in his nineties but she can see the fear on his face, the tired anguish that lies there as he runs past her, she cannot follow where he goes, not yet- She’s not there yet, but she will be in a moment -suddenly he looks far older than she could imagine. _

_ It loops back around again and she studies his robes, Prydonian like she used to wear in the academy, like they all used to wear.  _

_ She studies the frantic shaking of his hands, the way his shoulders tremble, how he is running as far as he can possibly get as the voices rise higher.  _

_ She looks at his shoes, just barely visible and red in colour, scuffed up and just slip ons, no boots, no clasps, they would come on and off with no problem.  _

_ Her spine buzzes, a soft pulse, an order she cannot follow, she mustn’t follow.  _

_ “FIND THE FOUNDLING!” It’s louder this time and she jumps, able to move but her limbs feel heavy and she starts to turn with the boy as he runs past her.  _

_ She watches him skid to a stop in front of it, the power that makes her bones quake and her mind unravel just a little bit more, the swirling mass of beautiful raw power, a hope and a death wish-  _

_ She watches as the boy reaches out a hand, she watches as he utters a sentence, “Please, you are the only chance I have left.” It is a plea for escape, for a final release. _

_ She works it out as she stares at his eyes, one last glance backwards to the other end of the corridor where footsteps are running, coming to find him.  _

_ The eyes she stares into are Theta’s. _

_ She can tell by the foolish little spark of hope in them as the boy turns back around, sticks his hand out and is devoured by the raw power of time. _

_ All that was left was a pair of red, scuffed up, slip on shoes.  _

_ It begins again and she cannot help but let the first tears escape.  _

“Where does he go?” 

_ She asks and the scene changes, leaving her in the mountains, on a road in front of a grand house, it is cold but the feeling of the Untempered Schism doesn’t fade not once as she is drawn through the house of Lungbarrow.  _

_ Until she stands in front of a loom.  _

_ It begins again, in the corridor.  _

_ She watches Theta run from people she cannot see and attempt to kill himself again, not knowing that it doesn’t work.  _

_ It would never work. _

_ “ _ Why would he want to do this?”  _ She questions the Matrix.  _

_ The Matrix responds immediately. _

* * *

The light comes back on and the angel faces her, hands removed from its face and a picture perfect smile in it’s stone casting lies waiting for them. 

“Gambling, you gambled.” The Master’s voice is harsh, almost judging in it’s tone and she scoffs at him.

“I gambled with you too back on Gallifrey.” She states, her grip tight on her sonic, she can hear him walking around, “That paid off.” 

His eyes roll as he ducks under the arm of the weeping angel, “Of course it paid off, as if I’m going to let myself be killed by someone who’s not you… Or my wife.” He chuckles, coming to stand next to her, “Lucy was a good shot, she deserved to kill me… Then the Timelords’ lackies killed her to resurrect me.” 

“Time Lords are bastards.” 

“Yes, yes they are.” 

He looks at her, she doesn’t take her eyes off of the Weeping Angel and they lapse into silence. 

“Should we call for your companions? Let them know they can come out now-” 

“What did you do to Yaz?” She interrupts him, still not moving her gaze, she couldn’t even blink, “Ryan said you did something to Yaz, what did you put in her head.” 

She can  _ feel  _ him hesitating, “She asked me why I cared, how I cared, why I was helping to get you… So, I showed her what it was like to love you.” His tone is too quiet, too slow for him to have enjoyed the torture he’s inflicted, “She fainted almost immediately, Ryan caught her- Oh, there was quite a show in the aftermath.” 

Her mouth opens before he speaks again.

“The Rani already told me off for that.” 

“The Rani told you off? Hang on, how is she even here?”

“Like the boy said, I was in her basement, I stabbed her… I think she saw one of the humans first after she regenerated.” He shrugged, before going to stand right in front of the angel, “Hence the attachment- I know what they’re singing by the way.”

She shakes her head, “What singing?”   
  
“They’re singing your name, Doctor.” He shifts his gaze to her, standing next to the angel, “Your full name.” 

She doesn’t mean to have her gaze shift to him, but it does and the Angel  _ moves,  _ standing between them now, moving round, away from the Fam which gave her some momentary relief but.. 

“How much did Yaz see?”   
  
“I showed her everything I could.” He does whisper this, stepping into her personal space and she doesn’t feel the need to push him away as she snaps her gaze over the weeping angel, “Call them all out, send them back to the TARDIS and then we can go and deal with the Rani.” 

It isn’t the worst plan, in fact it’s kind of a good one, not that she’ll admit it. 

“FAM!” She yells and the Master doesn’t even flinch, “GET GOING!” 

The door opens and they start running. 

Yaz pauses next to them first, “Doctor?”   
  
“I’ll catch up, remember where the TARDIS is?” She asks, not moving her eyes off of the angel, “Go, don’t stop til you get there.” 

Still, they hesitate. 

“I’ll catch up.” She repeats, firmer than before. 

Now, she feels Yaz move away, Ryan casts a look at her, he always does, Graham is off but probably concerned. 

She listens to their feet running, before she takes the Master by the hand, “How fast can you run?”   
  
“Decently?”    
  
“Good.” She states it, before pulling on him and beginning to do the thing she’s always done best. 

* * *

_ Someone- No, Theta is screaming.  _

_ But that isn’t they’re name yet, it wouldn’t be for a while.  _

_ Her stomach rolls and she gasps sharply as the child continues to scream, the woman standing above them ignoring the screams and continuing on.  _

_ “ _ STOP IT!”  _ She yells it and the image disappears immediately.  _

The Rani pulls herself away from the Matrix, why hadn’t he told her- Oh, why hadn’t he told her and let her come along to Gallifrey to watch them burn. 

She reaches up and brushes what she realises at tears off of her cheeks, she wonders how long it’s been since she last cried then she decides she doesn’t need the answer right now, “I don’t have the full story, but… I’m done.” 

Her fingers brush the surface of the orb, rolling it but locking her mind up tight so the Matrix cannot latch back on to her, desperate for attention, to finish showing her what she’d asked after- No. 

Nausea rises in the back of her throat and a part of her is thankful that she didn’t eat anything earlier, because she may be amoral but even she has lines she never crosses. 

Experimentation, that was… That wasn’t experimentation that was  _ torture  _ and tortue of a  _ Child  _ at that. 

Torture of Theta- But that hadn’t been Theta, not yet, just a nameless child… 

“The Other.” She breathes softly, recalling the story, fingers lifting off of the surface of the Matrix again, “Assumed dead… But not quite.” 

The Other had thrown themselves into the Untempered Schism and destroyed themself in the pursuit of time travel for the Timelords- But it hadn’t been an experiment, it had been an attempt at escape. 

She could still feel that desperation, rolling off of the Child off of Theta- Her stomach rolls again. 

“Maybe I do have a moral compass, that’s a bit boring.” But she thinks of her friends, her enemies now when you look at a timeline, at the life of duty they were forced to serve from the age of eight years old, barely knowing the full scope of quantum theory yet, “Why… What was there to be gained- How.” 

_ How,  _ her mind buzzed back at her. 

She pushes it back, rests her hand on the Matrix again and asks again. 

“Why was the Doctor detained?”

* * *

It’s easy enough to latch onto the telepathic signal, the Matrix in Shada was just glad to be of use again. 

The Doctor breaks away from the Fam, pulling the Master with her, she watches as Ryan’s gaze slides over them both, his mouth opening to call after them but she shakes her head firmly. 

His eyes snapback forwards, feet not stalling. 

The Doctor keeps running towards where the Rani  _ has  _ to be.

* * *

_ “Prevention, the Fugitive will be detained for prevention, once we know the threat has passed, we will begin the exile on Earth.”  _

_ She watches the memory play out, she watches a woman she registers as The Doctor almost immediately be monitored through a feed. _

_ “Who’s idea was it to hire the Judoon anyway?” _

_ “Gat’s, my Lord President.”  _

_ “And where is Gat?” _

_ The Lord President was met with silence.  _

_ “Well?” He prompted, expecting an answer and the Rani watched as what she thought must be CIA agents mill around, “Ah, I see, she’s dead.”  _

_ The agents all exchanged a look. _

_ “Yes, my Lord President, disintegrated by her own rifle, rewired by the Fugitive.”  _

_ The Rani doesn’t move, the memories in the Matrix, very alive after all, the Doctor was the fugitive, no doubt about that.  _

_ “The Matrix is rarely wrong with it’s predictions… I see it is already showing.” The Lord President stands, sighing, “We must find the Doctor, the universe and time itself depends on it.”  _

“What are they preventing?”  _ She asks the Matrix,  _ “What did you predict?”

_ The images shift, they twist, and then she is spat out. _

The room around her is bright, but shadows are moving and she spins in a slow circle as creatures move from them out of the corner of her eyes, a projection appears but she focuses on the shapes… On the angels.

She hears the door open somewhere, feels two more presences of timelords and knows they’ve come to find her before she turns her gaze to the projection. 

Blonde hair, a softer square face, a wide spread and manic grin on the face of the woman all in black. 

The Matrix breathes a singular word into her mind, seemingly oblivious to the presence of the Doctor and the Master. 

_ “Valeyard.” _

The Angels pounce. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I oop-


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusions and a Soft Epilogue with advice that will go unlistened to.

When their backs hit the TARDIS doors, they didn’t open. 

“Come on-” Ryan mutters, turning away, “Are we still being followed?” He knocks at the doors, wood, how could wood be so unbelievably stubborn?

Yaz stands next to him, leaning into the doors, “Doctor, how do we open the… Where is she?”

“She split off with the Master, probably to get the Rani-”   
  
“She did what- Ryan!”   
  
“Not now, we’ve gotta get inside the TARDIS!” Jack pushed Graham in between them, “That thing is coming for us, and we led them straight to a food source.” 

Dread sinks in him like a stone, as he presses his hand to the doors flatly, then his forehead, Yaz stares back the way they came, eyes unblinking and he focuses softly.

“Spare key… Where would I leave a spare key-” He reaches up as high as he can, “-Keep looking out, they can’t move if we can see them right?”

“Right.” She confirms, eyes still forwards, “Why hasn’t the Doctor given us keys?”

He didn’t have an answer, so he doesn’t answer, he just focuses on how high up he can get without losing his mind, tracing fingers over letters, trying to see if there was a gap somewhere in them. 

“Bit quicker?” Yaz asks, a layer of panic beginning in her tone.

He huffs, settling back down on his feet to look at her properly, “I’m doin’ my best, Yaz, not my fault the other tall person isn’t helping me-” 

“That’s me isn’t it?” Jack murmurs, “Yaz, Graham, you two keep an eye on the corridor, I’ll help see if there’s a key- though the TARDIS could help us by _opening the doors.”_

He reaches up and feels around too, ten fold and they both found nothing.

“The Doctor _has_ to have a spare key, doesn’t she?” Ryan presses his forehead to the door, “I’m asking for a key the moment she gets back… But, come on TARDIS, please, let us in.” 

He falls through the doors head first.  
  
“You…” He groans into the floor, feeling the others scramble over him, before his granddad helps him up, “Are all TARDIS this temperamental?”

Jack laughs, “This one has always been special I think, not that I’ve been in many TARDIS, I travelled once with a Miss Oswald, also Immortal, also knew the Doctor.” 

Yaz goes to shut the door behind them, but stops, “.....The angels…” 

“What is it?”  
  
“...They’ve disappeared?” Yaz shut the doors, looking a little bewildered, before smiling at him brightly, “Must have been the Doctor.” 

Ryan certainly hoped it was.

* * *

They land on the floor immediately in a pile, four arms wrapping around her and holding her close. 

She groans in unison with them both and their heavy arms as she opens her eyes again and looks around, the Doctor’s head raises up and the Rani stares partly because the Doctor definitely had an upgrade and because the projection shining above them was a perfect match. 

The Master lifts his head too, “Why didn’t they attack?”  
  
“Holograms.” This earns their gazes as they look down at her, she wonders how this looks, “They’re holograms.” 

She watches the Doctor shake her head, hair swinging around her chin and her eyes remain wide, “An image of an angel becomes an angel.”  
  
“Well, that’s ridiculous.” The Rani states it, wiggling, “Now get off me, you're both heavy.” 

The Doctor’s gaze slides down to her finally, “Rani… Your…” 

“Alive? Being crushed? Yes-”  
  
“GINGER!” It’s an anguished cry right in her ear, “Why do you get to be _ginger-”_

She pushes at the Doctor’s arm, “Now is hardly the time Doctor!” The arm moves, followed by the Master’s and she sits herself up again, “Now if you’ll just let me-” 

Her fingers brush the podium the Matrix is on and the angels disappear. 

The projection remains, “The Valeyard.” She repeats it and watches the Doctor flinch, bodily jerking away and up onto her feet. 

“Well, we found you Rani, we should get out of here-”  
  
“Wait.” She says it and the Doctor stops as she stands, brushing her coat off and turning to the projection, “They look like you, the Valeyard, who are they?”

The Doctor turns back to face her, the Master stands now too, “Supposedly they’re one of my later regenerations, had a trial, lost a friend, decided I was never going to be them.”  
  
“A trial?”   
  
“Yeah, it seemed like it lasted forever-” The Doctor is closing herself off again, just like she would when they were children. 

“One of your later regenerations?” The Master echoes, looking over the projection now too, around them the angels flickered back to life, the Rani placed her hand on the Matrix again and they disappeared, “Doctor, this one looks distinctly… Evil.” 

She doesn’t speak again, pressing her lips together and lifting her gaze to the projection, “Shut it off.” The Doctor requests the Rani and she cocks her head at her in return, “.... _Please.”_

The Rani swipes it and it disappears, “You are both explaining this all to me, I hope you know that, especially about how the Doctor here looks to be the outcome of what was definitely not an experiment but a suicide attempt.” 

“Suicide attempt?” The Master and Doctor speak in unison.

She huffs, “The Child! The Matrix showed me a child running for his life, only to end it!” 

They look at her blankly.

“The gap that Ryan saw in the Doctor’s timeline?”

At this the Master rises up, ready to speak but the Doctor interjects, “What gap?”

The Rani holds out her hand, “Take a look.” It’s firm. 

The Doctor’s eyes scan the Rani’s palm, before she holds the Doctor’s hand in her own and presses it to the surface of the orb. 

Eyes closed, the Doctor leans into the orb. 

“You seem very put together for someone who knows the truth now.” The Master states it, “About the Doctor being the Timeless Child… The founder of Gallifrey.” 

She stares at him, “We consider her to be a founder yes, but, our history appears to have been manipulated in how we were taught it.” 

“What do you mean?” His eyes look at her, hair a mess again and he frowns, "Didn't it break you?"

"It didn’t break me… Which part?"

"The truth about the Doctor?" 

"Well, it did.” The Rani speaks slowly, “But then I remembered that it doesn’t really change anything, from what I can see she’s still loomed like a Timelord, same genetic code maybe but in a different order.”

"What? But it’s proof that she’s Special, she always acted like it when we were children and now there’s proof.” He insists and his gaze takes on the note of sadness that lets her know that he really believes it this time,

"Look, only one who has ever thought the Doctor was 'Special' was you and you alone.” She pauses, looking at the aforementioned carefully, watching the twitch through the memories, his lips move but she interrupts him, “From what I’ve seen she isn’t special, she’s a victim and… She got away.” 

The Master is silent, lips falling shut, she knows he is most likely coming up with as many arguments as he can possibly think of to defend his point, his perspective of it all, “There’s a little piece of her in all of us, she’s why we can regenerate.” 

It floods her own mind as quickly as a flash, the screaming, the woman hovering above a child and tortur- She squashes it down, less it influences the Doctor’s own trip down memory lane, it may not have been the best course of action, retraumatizing…

“Are you insinuating we’re just copies?” Her voice is chilling, it isn’t by choice it just comes out that way, “Copies, born out of the suffering of someone who couldn’t defend themselves?” There is a shake of anger, of course there is. 

Something sparks in the Master’s eyes now, the same spark really, born out of staring at time itself, “We’re all inferior to her, she is so much more than us-”

“She really isn’t.” The Rani states it, meeting his eyes again, “The Doctor- Theta isn’t more than us, if anything it should make us even more alike, you had drums in your head… Theta was used and abused by people who had no business touching her in the first place, she’s… It’s Gallifrey, planet of Child abuse.” 

He falls into silence, staring at her, “......I know.” 

It dawns on her, “Oh Other, you…” She feels the fury leak out of her slowly, “You destroyed Gallifrey for the Doctor didn’t you?”

He doesn’t answer, his eyes slide from her and burn intensely with things she dares not name as he looks at the Doctor. 

Who awakens with a gasp.

* * *

Five minutes of pacing back and forth.

“We should go find them.” Yaz’s voice is firm across the TARDIS, before she pauses in her pacing, “We should definitely go find them, but there are weeping angels outside.” 

Her feet keep moving across the floor as she resumes pacing back and forth. 

He’s tempted to ask her to stop, but knows it’s her way of settling her anxiety, like he tends to be quiet, or how Graham makes comments to make himself feel better in the situation.

“Maybe we should just sit tight, the Doc can’t be in that much trouble… Can she?” Graham speaks up again, “I mean, we know the Master bloke is bad news but they looked…” 

  
Jack finishes the thought, “Cozy.” 

“What exactly is their history anyway?” He asks, sitting up from where he’s lying on the floor, ignoring the urge to go out and try to solve the problem himself.

Yaz stops pacing, sighs and sinks to the floor in a crossed legged position, “Long.” Her eyes rest on her hands, “Complicated, but… He loves her, he also hates her… Loathes her in ways we can’t even begin to think about.” 

Her eyes slide shut and Ryan sides up, “What did he do to you?” He keeps his voice soft but her eyes snap open again and over to him easily, “You just collapsed, I.. we were worried.” 

She stares at him for a moment, long enough that he shifts a little under her gaze, “He showed me how much he cared about the Doctor, how much he feels like she doesn’t need him and… It was familiar.” 

“Familiar?” Jack prompts, his eyebrows furrowing a little bit, “In what way?”  
  
Her cheeks grow a little darker, “I understand the attraction.” She coughs, sitting up a bit straighter and moving her gaze away from his, “Not on the same level as him, but…”   
  
“The Doctor draws you into their orbit, making everything else shine just a little… But then they up and disappear suddenly and you wonder briefly if you even mattered to them in the first place.” Jack finishes, meeting Yaz’s gaze himself.

Yaz tears it away back to Ryan, her eyes a little wider, “Is it really that obvious that I have a crush on the Doctor?” But before he can semi assure her that _No, it hadn’t been_ that _obvious_ he’s interrupted.   
  
“Who doesn’t?” Jack prompts again, “They always come out so damn attractive after all.” 

Ryan elects not to say anything on the matter, pressing his lips together before he straightens his back a bit, “I wonder what’s taking them so long? Can’t take that long to steal a Matrix right?”

“Depends on the kind of Matrix… The TARDIS has one too I believe.” The american leant against one of the pillars, “The Doctor didn’t really ever stop to explain it all, but I’ve picked up bits and pieces over the years about them, a Matrix houses information if I remember correctly, past, present and future.” 

Graham looks over them all, “Does the TARDIS already know what will happen to all of us? If it’s got the future as well as the past and the present.” 

Silence stretches between them all, it can’t last that long but it itches in the back of Ryan’s head and he looks at Yaz, who looks at him straight back, before they look over at Graham together. 

Jack launches back off of the pillar, “Waiting is hellish isn’t it?” 

“Yeah.” Yaz mutters, standing up again and turning back towards the doors, “But I think I’d wait forever for the Doctor.”  
  
His face turns stony and strong, “Take it from someone who has been waiting that long Yaz, it’s really not worth it.”   
  
“I can’t believe that.”   
  
“Somehow, I have a feeling that anyone who’s ever waited for the Doctor has said the same thing.” Jack’s words are too honest and even Ryan feels they’re sting. 

* * *

  
  


“Error in judgement.” Was the first thing she heard when the Matrix let her go, “I may have made a slight error in judgement in letting you look at all of that.”

The Doctor turns her head to the Rani, lowering her gaze to look down on the time lady, “Not often you admit that…” Her head was _pounding_ but that tended to happen when you looked back on your own timeline. 

“When doesn’t she make errors in judgement?” The Master mutters, but she knows his eyes haven’t strayed from her. 

The Rani Snaps her head to him, “Oh, you want to get into that do you?” and the Doctor is distantly reminded of their youths, long afternoons filled with arguments, “May I remind you of all the times you decided hijacking and stealing from me were good ideas? Or, how about we talk about stabbing-” 

“Nazis.” The Doctor states to the Master, effectively shutting the Rani’s rambling off and out of her head, “Definitely one of your worst moments.” 

“Not as bad as leaving me up there without a perception filter, really Doctor, do you just forget that your human race isn’t wholly kind or do you just choose to be blind to that fact?”

She turns her gaze away from him, “We both did things we regret in Paris.” 

“Yeah, I guess we did.” 

They lapse into silence and the Rani looks between them. 

“Rani…” The Doctor begins, turning to her again, “Are you short?” Pushing her words to the Master aside, “Have you ever been shorter than us before?”

She stares at the Doctor, all big eyes with long lashes and- She has the Master’s eyes, but they bore a striking resemblance to Clara’s as well, “Never by this much, it doesn’t matter, I’m still smarter then both of you- Proven by the fact that you went to _Nazi Occupied Paris_ and got into a fight where you left the Master to them?”

“He teamed up with them first-”   
  
“You teamed up with Nazis??”

The Master looks at the floor, “It was not my finest moment but the Doctor-” 

“No.” The Rani spreads her hands at both of them, pushing the Doctor aside, “You cannot use each other to excuse your actions, if you are going to do shitty things at least _own_ up to them and not try to prove your better than one another in stupid little petty arguments like this.” 

Well, she wasn’t wrong. 

The Doctor watches the Rani skim the edge of where the Matrix’s sat on it’s pedestal, then move her fingernail around before- 

It popped out into her hands, the Rani laughed in slight delight, “Matrix hacked.” She held the orb in her arms, just a little smaller than a football, it pulsed a nice red in her fingertips before shifting over to a glowy orange. 

“You can’t steal the Matrix.” 

“Well, I am.” 

The Doctor watched her turn to the door, “I thought you wanted answers?”  
  
“I always want answers and I will get them, but I think we’ve all spent far too much time in prison…” Her voice carries flatly, avoiding something she really wants to say and it’s funny because the Doctor cannot remember a time when the Rani ever held her tongue, “Make no mistakes, either of you, I am still angry.” 

The Master didn’t say a word.

Neither, could the Doctor find the words to reply. 

The Rani looks them both in the eyes, one after the other, “We’re all angry, it’s the only thing we have left of ourselves and our pasts, shared or otherwise.” Her heels are the only sound as she leaves the room. 

She was watched by them both as she went, Matrix in her arms. 

“She’s not wrong.” The Master starts it plainly enough, shoving his coat aside and hands in his pockets, “We are all angry, nothing calms our rage, nothing ever will.” 

She looks at him, properly looks at him, “I’m not angry.” He laughs, for the first time in forever she feels like it’s genuinely him, no malice, no anger of his own, he’s Koschei for the smallest of seconds.

“Doctor, you _burn_ brighter than any suns in the universe.” It would almost be romantic if it wasn’t for the sneer on his face, he starts to walk out and then stops, turning back around to look at her, wait for her, “We should go and find your pets-”   
  
“Companions.” 

“-that’s what I said, before they go getting themselves into trouble.” 

She’s half tempted to tell him that they wouldn’t do that, then she recalls the number of times that they have recently done just that, “Let’s go.”

“I thought you’d never say those words.” He walks out the door and she follows him, stuffing her own hands in her pockets.

_Why_

It buzzed in her ears, she wonders briefly where it came from before realising that it had been her own thought.

_Why did…_

The Child had been running, had run through the corridors to where the Untempered Schism was kept, reached up their hand- Her hand, and let themselves be taken away in the winds of time, on that tide that was so wholly unique to the vortex.

And then… Then she’d been loomed anew, into her first body in her memory, a small boy with dirty blonde hair and an endless amount of trouble in his eyes. 

The lives that came before that… The ones she can’t remember, they were just more lives to mourn, to remember that they exist but not know their names, their faces and they just… 

Her past sat in mystery, but she could choose when she began and when she looked at them both ahead of her… She chose Theta, she chose them, she chose being eight years old in deep red robes with gold accents, the sound of his feet rushing through a field away from a door in time.

He’d ran.

Theta had run from the Untempered Schism, in the opposite direction because her genetic code remembered what had killed her before the loom. 

Genetics were funny like that. 

The Doctor chose their beginning and it was found in a sunlit courtyard, in the offering of friendship from a boy with blue eyes and what would become the one constant in all of her lives… 

Beginnings often came out of endings after all.

And the Doctor chose Koschei Oakdown again, taking those small steps forwards to tug his hand out of his pocket to take in her own, ignoring the slight look of surprise as she pulled him along to catch up to the Rani. 

“Ushas!” And the Rani turned on her heel, waves of gloriously red hair curling up around her face, “Let’s go find the rest of my fam!” 

She blinked, big brown eyes shining slightly as the Rani returned her smile. 

“Fine.” But it was said with just the barest hint of amusement.

* * *

  
  


Surprisingly, she finds the rest of her Fam in the TARDIS. 

  
Admittedly she had been expecting them to have run off to find her the moment she left them to go find the Rani, but here they were.

That being said none of them looked particularly happy with her. 

The Rani breezed straight past them all to the console, “So, are we going?”

“What about the Weeping Angel?” Yaz asked, standing up from where she’d been sitting on the floor, “Are we just going to leave it here?”

The Doctor doesn’t answer at first, just pulling the Master after her to the controls, letting go of his hand to start inputting coordinates, she’d drop the Fam back on Earth first, then take the Rani back to Siluria and then….

“Yes, we’re leaving.” No one out there is innocent, the guards were clearly all gone by the time her fam got here after all, “The Weeping Angel is alone, it will be fine.” 

She knows they’re all staring at her, “Doctor, what about everyone in there?” 

“Infinite food source, timelords suspended in cryogenics, the artron energy builds without having to send them through time and create paradoxes.” She presses a button, looks at the Master and inclines her head to the controls, watching him hesitate before he starts to help her, the Rani is quick to follow with one hand and the other holding onto the Matrix, “In fact, it will probably overfeed and die out, natural death.” 

Even that sounded flimsy to her ears. 

“Besides, you know I can’t save everyone at the end of the day-”

“Can’t or won't?” Ryan’s voice is a quiet rumble and her hand stills above the final lever, her favourite to pull down into the adventure, “You still haven’t answered any of our questions.”

The Doctor thinks about the rows and rows of timelords out there, criminals and she wonders why the Master hasn’t left her behind to blow it up yet, wonders why _she_ hasn’t bothered to look at the logs and see who’s here, “I will, when we’re not in a Prison.”

“What about the people that aren’t prisoners?” He pushes and she turns to look at him properly, there’s a tension in his shoulders, “What about the guards or the administrative staff?”

Her retorts arrive on her tongue and die out just as quickly. “I can’t save everyone, Ryan, you know that and if I have to choose between a prison full of timelords… And you all…”

She pushes the lever down, “I’ll choose all of you, time and again.”

Even as she turns away she knows that a part of the image her fam has of her is ruined by this small interaction, “Are you taking us home?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t.” And Ryan walks forwards, touches her console and changes their course, “We’re going back to- What was your planet called?” He directs this at the Rani who looks at him with an uncharacteristic shimmer of pride in her eyes.

The Rani flicks some switches, “Siluria, mind the dinosaurs.”

“...Did she just say Dinosaurs?” Graham asks, “We didn’t see any dinosaurs when we were- But we were inside…” 

The Doctor looks at Ryan piloting her TARDIS, then watches as Yaz joins him, “How do you know how to do that?”

“I watch, I listen.” Is how he replies, before he nods towards the Rani, “She taught me a bit, though I had a general idea.” 

She turns her gaze onto the aforementioned timelord, who raises her own eyebrows in challenge, “I should take you home, you must be tired.”

“We want answers.” Yaz replies, her own shoulders tensing, “We won’t force you to answer but, we’re curious and we want to hear it from you.” 

The Master’s fingers brush the back of her hand, lightly, softly and despite it all she can’t deny that it is comforting, nor can she deny that they’re right. 

It probably is time she starts answering their questions.

So, it is here as they move through the vortex towards a planet she hasn’t seen in millenia with as nearly complete a circle of family as she can have, the Doctor lets go of her mask.

“....What do you want to know?”

* * *

**Epilogue/Bonus Scene**

  
  
  
  


Yaz knows she wasn’t the first person to ever love the Doctor, according to the aforementioned herself a few hours ago she wasn’t ever going to be. 

When the Doctor had taken a breath and listed the names of young men and women she’d travelled with before, it had kept growing and growing until she listed theirs, soft and sad, relieved as well to be free for it all. 

She looks over the library from where she’s leant against the railing, the TARDIS keeps the temperature perfect depending on the room and despite its size the library is cozy, covered floor to ceiling in shelves, three different levels that are accessed by spiral staircases with a diving board on the highest balcony to jump into the pool below.

It doesn’t escape her that she’s probably following in someone else’s footsteps standing here, what also doesn’t escape her is the Master coming to rest next to her, his arms are more floppy when they go over the railing but she’s not afraid anymore. 

Not of him, that was the funny thing about seeing inside his head for a spark of a moment, the fear went with it because all that stood beside her was a broken man who wanted his friend hell or high water. 

Yaz could relate to that in a way, though with far less murder. 

“It’s hard to realise you aren’t the only one.” Is how he greets her, voice cool and cold, he stares down below at the pool and she turns her gaze in that direction too, “I always forget how long the list of names is, I forget how many of them I had a hand in killing too.” 

She stands up a little taller, “Name one.” 

“What?”   
  
“Name one of the ones you killed.” 

His gaze shifts back to her and his eyebrows raise, “Do you really want to know that?”

“Yes.” 

The Master studies Yaz, then stands up from leaning over the railing, “Well, I did convert Bill into a cyberman and if you really want to get into it, chose Clara Oswald  _ for  _ the Doctor so technically I had a hand in hers as well.” 

“You remember their names?”

“Every single one, didn’t even know I knew half of them.” She wonders if he’s being honest and then realises that maybe in this moment she doesn’t care, even if for a single second something shines like regret. 

They both lapse into silence and she wonders if she’s being missed, before she hears him take a deep breath and utter a simple sentence.

“Don’t love the Doctor.” 

She frowns, “Why?” Yaz crosses her arms and stares at him full in the face, standing up as straight as she can, “Will you kill me?”

“No.” He sounds so sure when he says it, “You’ll either end up dying at your own reckless hand or at hers, not everyone is Martha Jones.”

Yaz tilts her head at him, watches him and she can see his disguise as O sat there somewhere, “Martha left right? We met her and another Doctor a while ago now.”

His eyebrows raise up, “You did? Pinstripes I’m guessing, now that Doctor was fun.” He laughs, distant and nostalgic at the same time, “Wonder when that was then, gonna have to ask her myself at some point.”

“I still don’t really see what this has to do with my falling in love with the Doctor.” 

The Master’s fingers tap on his leg, four beats over and over again, a nervous habit by the looks of it, his eyes move around as if he’s debating how to word it, “Even when she tells you the truth, she still won’t be real, she won’t let you really know her.”

“You can’t know that-”

“But I do because she still left out parts of the story earlier, she told you about her companions, from Ian and Barbara to Bill Potts, because you asked how many people she’d travelled with, but she left out Susan.” His finger lifts from his leg, “She left out how many of those people she got killed, how many she left behind and how many got themselves killed in her name.”

He sighs quietly, softly, “And I’m not just talking about companions, can’t help but notice how she left out how many people she’s killed, how many soldiers die fighting her or how many planets fear her.”

The Master lounges back against the bookshelves, eyes closing softly shut as a smile works its way onto his face properly.

He wasn’t wrong, the Doctor had answered their questions, but been tied up as well, nervous to admit things, eyes never quite focusing on them, “Do you fear her?”

“No.” It’s in that same tone of sure voice, “I fear what I would be without her, you’ve seen it, I showed you.” 

He had, it had sounded like singing stars in her ears, “I don’t think I fear her either.” She admits, resting her back against the railing, “I really do think I could fall for her.” 

“So, don’t.” He repeats, “Be one of the first companions to fight back against that urge, against the timelord magnetism, succeed where others have failed spectacularly.”

Yaz raises her eyebrows, “Where you failed spectacularly?”

“Maybe.” His eyes open again, sparkling a little bit and it causes the tiniest of flutters in her stomach, “I wasn’t the only person with a crush on her back in the academy either, I died about eight times because I called dibs and everyone else was jealous- Not the Rani of course, she is the one person I never have to worry about.”

She blinks, “Eight times?”

“Well, ten, Magnus took extra potshots over the years and succeeded.” There’s a begrudging kind of respect in his tone and he grins more ferally at her, “Don’t make my mistakes Yaz, fall in love with a human your own age.” 

Her eyes scan him, “I feel like it’s out of character for you to say these things.” 

“So is not throwing you over that railing, but I’m trying something new.” He shrugs, “I finally feel a bit more in order too, no Cyberium, since the Rani’s collected up the Matrix every piece of information I had went back into that instead of slowly destroying my cells because no being of flesh can hold it.”

Yaz pushes herself up off the railing, “What if I want to fall in love with the Doctor, not as anything serious as a classic young queer woman kind of crush?”

“That works, expect it to hurt though…” He pushes himself off of the bookshelf to stand in front of her, “Though, I will give you one last piece of advice, then I’m going to walk away because now that I’ve mentioned it the urge to push you over the railing is mounting.” 

She takes a step away from him, “What advice?”

“Fall in love with a human, find someone else to love you until you die of old age Yasmin Khan, I can guarantee you will love them more than you could ever love the Doctor.” 

“How do you know that?”

“Because, whoever you end up loving will be ultimately more real and solid to you then a woman in a flapping coat and a whirring screwdriver.” His smile is softer as he turns on his heel towards the door, then pauses, “Oh, on that note you should definitely take Ryan out for a drink some time.”

She stands up straight again,”What? Why would I take Ryan out for a-” 

But he’s gone, disappeared into the TARDIS’s hallways. 

Her neck feels hot and she looks down at the pool below, it wasn’t any business of the Master’s to tell her any of that- It was her life after all. 

“Ask Ryan out for a… Yeah right.” She stalks out of the library herself and debates it all. 

She would love the Doctor if she wanted to, no one but her had control over her feelings. 

* * *

  
  


It’s been awhile as the Rani pours out three drinks, humans squared away into rooms of their own and the walking paradox left to explore by himself in some other part of their universe. 

By the time morning breaks once again on Siluria, the Rani will be back where she was meant to be. 

By the time morning breaks in Sheffield, the Fam will be home and in bed properly.

By the time morning would have broken on Gallifrey the Doctor will be squared away into her TARDIS with the Master. 

Three glasses, brandy in each one with a decently sized piece of nice, three drinks meant to be nursed whilst they all spoke to one another for the first time in fifteen thousand years. 

“So, who wants to start?” The Rani offers, sinking into a plush red velvet wingback armchair, she looks at home in the TARDIS’s drawing room, she crosses one leg over the other and circles the brandy in her own glass, eyes unwavering from the two of them, “You told the companions of yours a lot, but not everything and you-” She inclined the glass to the Master, “-probably overstepped some unspoken boundary with the girl again.”

The Doctor sips her own brandy, it tastes the same as it always does, that sharp strong taste with the hint of ginger lying just barely hidden below the surface, “What did you talk to Yaz about?” She asks the Master, not acknowledging the elephant in the room that the Rani would prefer them both to get on with. 

He shrugs, avoiding the Rani’s gaze as well as her own, “I told her not to love you, though if she’s anything like us-” 

“Oh, those two are  _ exactly  _ like us.” The Rani interjects, “Ryan and Yaz… They remind me of you two when you were thousands of years younger, sweet but oblivious, but admittedly so very clever.” 

The Master doesn’t look at her, “The Doctor likes them clever.” His eyes focus on his drink, “Clever and reckless, doing things for her without much questioning and closing up when they wake up enough to finally ask.”

She doesn’t acknowledge the words, just sips her drink and leans back in her own drink, “Well, I answered the questions didn’t I.” 

“Yes, well enough for them, curiosity is so easy to satire in humans.” The Rani looks over at the shelves of books and trinkets that the Doctor has collected over the years, “The only thing humans have going for them is that they never live long enough to absolutely lose their minds- Well, I have killed a few who definitely deserved it.”

Next to her, the Master hums, “I thought you didn’t do cold blooded murder my dear Rani?”

“I make exceptions, as would the Doctor in the situations I was in.”

The Doctor raises her eyebrows, “How do you know that?”

“Because the people I killed hurt children… And the children never should have to face the things they’ve faced.” Her tone is uncharacteristically caring, not cold, she sounds almost sentimental and the Doctor waves it away, “What? I may be amoral but I can still care sometimes.”

The Master shakes his head, “Never the children.” He mutters, looking at the ceiling, “Why never the children?”

“I refuse to do to others what was done to me, to us.” Her voice is cool now too, she closes her eyes and the Doctor simply watches the conversation play out, “That was decided for me the moment they made me look into the raw power of time, the moment they put duty over innocence.”

The Doctor speaks now, “Rani, how come you don’t seem as hung up on my identity as the Master was?”

“What identity? Your Theta.”

“But the Timeless Child-” 

“Theta, I spliced all of our DNA when I was fifteen and never found any order of code that was different beyond a certain level… It was a shame really, I was betting on Mortimus being half Zygon.” Her lips curl upwards into a smirk, “It would have explained his ghastly sense of humour.” 

Despite it all the Doctor laughs, then keeps laughing and slowly the Master joins in, before the Rani chuckles herself, “You should make sure he never hears you say that, he was already annoyed when I dismantled his plan for attention by disguising himself as Henry the Eighth.” The Master’s voice carries.

The Rani smiles, the Doctor looks at him, “When was this?”

“Oh, about four hundred odd years ago now, he’s probably still mad at me, I’ll tell you both the story another time…”

“No.” The Doctor pushes forwards, putting her glass down, “You’ll tell us now, I think you’ll find there’s nothing better to talk about then this.” 

“Then the humiliation of one of our old school chums?”   
  
“Yes.”

The Master raises his eyebrows, but opens his mouth and indulges them both. 

Not every problem was solved, oh, they would have so much to talk about sooner rather than later, but right now, as the Master told a story that had even the Rani grinning widely with a fire crackling and brandy flowing…

The Doctor had never felt more at peace in the universe.

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining me for 'A Healing Death', when I started it I had a vague idea of where it was going to go and it's changed over the course of writing it, the original gist of the fic was 'The Rani sends the Doctor and Master to therapy' before it went completely off the rails.
> 
> I don't know if this was the conclusion any of you were looking for and I have left some things purposefully unanswered, though I do have quite a bit of the story worked out... If you have any questions feel free to comment them and I will answer to the best of my ability. 
> 
> Most of the answers will seem a little out of nowhere but I promise they were almost all planned out with the exception of any jokes, jabs or teasing, I had a few different ways the Epilogue could go so I may right them out at a later point as well. 
> 
> Feel free to reach out to me on Tumblr at ladyadelinergrey if you want to know more about the Rani design in this fic too, I love talking about her and drawing her as much as I love writing her. 
> 
> My next project is 'Murder happens like clockwork' and the first chapter is available now! With the rest to follow as my writing project starting in May. 
> 
> Thank you once again for taking this ride with me and I hope I could bring you a moderate of happiness and satisfaction after S12's conclusion. 
> 
> See you all soon!


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